Save Me
by VideoGameChic
Summary: When things go wrong at the pokemon center, Paul is forced to help look for Dawn, but will his reason for looking for her change, and will this simple task turn into something far more difficult and complicated? Ikarishipping all the way!
1. Afternoon Stroll Gone Wrong

**Ok, this is my first Fanfic , so bare with me people. **

**I L.O.V.E. love ikarishipping, so I HAD to write a story for them.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

It was a regular day for Dawn. Nothing particular out of the ordinary. Just walking through the forest with Ash and Brock on her way to her next contest.

"Wow Dawn, good job winning your last contest." Ash said as he gave her a confident thumbs up.

"Thanks Ash, I wasn't sure if I was going to win it, but I was able to pull through thanks to my pokemon." She replied as she smiled down at piplup who was peacefully resting in her arms.

"Yeah, you have really improved a lot in the last couple weeks, and I'm sure you'll do fine on your next contest." Brock added.

"Thanks Brock. We are going to train real hard." Dawn said.

"So when is your next contest?" Ash asked.

"In about a week, so we better hurry if we want to make it on time." Dawn answered as she walked ahead of the group in a hurry.

The sun was shining bright and the wind was blowing at the perfect speed. It was a great day to be outside traveling with your friends or anyone for that matter. As they continued through the forest, they soon found themselves at a huge clearing. There was a large waterfall cascading down a steep cliff that flowed down to a sparkling river. Trees surrounded the clearing with the most precious bunch of flowers you will ever see grown underneath the trees. And to add to that, the suns rays reflected off of the river which lite up the entire area.

"Wow, it's so pretty here." Said Ash as they all marveled at their beautiful surroundings.

"It is really pretty, but how are we going to get over that cliff?" Dawn asked with concern in her voice as she looked at the large cliff that blocked their way.

"Don't worry Dawn, we can just climb over it." Ash reassured her with confidence in his voice.

"Iiii don't knowwww" She replied unsuringly.

But Ash being who he is, wasn't going to let some cliff get in his way of continuing their journey.

"It'll be easy." Ash threw his fist high in the air with a huge smiled stretched across his face.

"Yeah!"

* * *

"Noooo…."Ash groaned as he hung from the side of the cliff.

'This looked a lot easier to do then actually doing it'. Ash thought to himself.

Dawn, Brock and Pikachu watched Ash struggled to climb the cliff from the ground, giant sweat drops rolling down the sides of their heads in a comical manner.

"Be careful Ash, cliffs like that can be very unstable, some of the rocks may be loose." Brock tried to warn Ash.

"Don't worry Brock, I'll be fine." While he was turned around, trying to reassure Brock, Ash didn't notice that he grabbed onto a loose rock "

Oh, no, wha…Aaaahhhh!" Unable to grab onto another rock quick enough, Ash came crumbling down to the ground in a giant crash.

"Ouch" Ash groaned.

His body face down in the dirt, arms sticking out twitching, it was too hard for Dawn and Brock not to laugh at Ash's misfortune.

"Pathetic." A voice said from a distance. They all turned around and saw none other then Paul standing there with his hands in his pockets.

"You act like such a little kid, how pathetic." Paul said as he glared at the group.

Ash jumped up from the ground and glared back at Paul.

"Who are you calling pathetic?!" Ash yelled.

"Hn" Was the only response that Paul gave.

"What's so funny Paul!"

Paul didn't answer, he stood there with a smirk on his face, watching as every word he said angered Ash even further.

"I'll give you something to laugh about, let's have a battle!" Ash demanded as he began taking out a poke-ball.

"Hn, fine, this'll be fun." Paul said as he too took out a poke-ball.

As soon as Dawn realized what was going down, she decided to intervene. "Whoa! No no no no no! Ash, we don't have time for this, my contest is in a week and we still have to get to the next city!" Dawn yelled.

"Come on Dawn, I gotta beat him." Ash begged.

But Dawn wouldn't budge. "Ash, nothing is going to happen to Paul between now and my contest, just battle him another time."

"I don't want to wait until another time. Come on Dawn. Pleeeaaassse." Ash said with huge puppy dog eyes plastered across his face.

"hmmmmm?" Dawn tried to resist, but who can resist huge puppy dog eyes. She couldn't take it anymore, and finally gave in.

"Fine." She said in defeat.

"Thanks Dawn, it won't be long!" Ash yelled in excitement.

"Yeah, it won't take long for me to crush this loser." Paul added which angered Ash.

"What did you say Paul!" He yelled.

"Hn"

"I'll be the referee." Said Brock.

"Electabuzz, stand by for battle!" Paul threw his poke-ball in the air, and out came electabuzz.

"Pikachu, I choose you!" Ash yelled as Pikachu ran in front of him.

With both of their pokemon out, they began to battle. Dawn and Brock sat on a giant log next to the cliff and watched as both pokemon exchanged attacks. (I'm bad with writing pokemon battles, so imagine one happening.[Even after finishing chap. 10 I still can't write Pokemon battles.])

"Electabuzz, Brick Break!" Paul commanded.

"Pikachu, Irontail!" Ash told Pikachu.

Both pokemon were about to clash when all of a sudden...?! "Pika!" Pikachu yelled. To no ones surprise it was Team Rocket! And their giant robot just grabbed Pikachu with one of its multiple hands.

"Hahahahaha!" Jessie laugh in triumph, "Little twerp, we finally have Pikachu!"

"Pikachu!" Ash yelled, "Use, thunderbolt!" "pikaCHUUU!" Pikachu used thunderbolt, but it was no use.

"Hahahahaha! Sorry twerp, that won't work, this robot is pokemon proof." Jessie said.

"Uuuuhhh! These losers again, this is the second time you've interrupted one of our battles, I don't have all day to deal with you guys." Paul said, obviously agitated by their presence.

"Yeah, me neither so just give Pikachu back and get out of here!" Dawn yelled.

"Hey it's the rude twerp again, and he's working together with the girly twerp." James pointed out.

"Who said I was working together with him, I just have better things to do then sit here wasting my time with you guys." Dawn replied defensively.

James leaned over and began whispering to Jessie and Meowth, "Since when did the girly twerp get so mean?" He asked. They both shrugged.

Dawn stood up, and dropped piplup to the ground, "Piplup, use whirlpool on the ground under the robot!" Piplup did what it was told and used whirlpool under the robot. The water threw the robot off balance and it began slipping everywhere.

"Electabuzz, use brick break on the leg!" Paul commanded. Electabuzz ran at the robot and broke right through the leg.

"Ahhh, James! I thought you said it was pokemon proof!" Jessie frantically yelled.

"I thought it was!" With only 1 leg, the robot was out of control. It ran into the side of the cliff, which loosened some of the rocks, and then it dropped Pikachu.

"Pikachu, use thunder bolt now!" Ash said. Pikachu sent a bolt of lightning surging through the robot.

"Oh no, not again, this is all your fault Meowth!" Jessie accused.

"Why is it my fault!"

"Because you built it!"

"No, I didn't, James did!"

"What!" James was now dragged back into the argument.

Their argument never finished though because about a minute later, the robot explodes sending them soaring into the sky.

"Team Rocket is blasting off again!"

And with a finishing twinkle in the sky, they were gone. But the explosion from the robot shook the entire landscape, and rocks began to fall off of the cliff. With all this commotion, Paul didn't notice the rock hurdling his way.

"Hey Paul look out!" Dawn runs and tackles Paul to the ground, knocking both of them out of the way in time.

"Uhhh, that was a close one." Dawn said as she brushed the sweat off of her forehead.

"Can you get off me!" Paul demanded.

"What? Oh sorry." Dawn rolled off of him, and they both stood up, brushing the dirt off of themselves.

"What did you do that for?" Paul harshly asked.

Dawn was a little taken back by Paul's harsh tone of voice, but decided to answer his question never the less. "Umm dude, you were about to be crush by a rock."

"I could have saved myself no problem." Paul arrogantly answered.

"A thanks would be nice but whatever." Dawn replied with annoyance in her voice.

"Yeah well I didn't ask for your help."

"Yeah well, you needed it."

"Yeah well next time don't, I don't need help from you or any of these other pathetic losers." Paul hissed.

"Unbelievable! I put all my pride aside to save your life, and you don't even appreciate it. You're so full of yourself that you can't even see when someone's trying to do something nice for you. You know what, just get out of here Paul, ok? Just go, it's not like anyone wants you here anyway, everyone hates you!" Dawn spat. She was practically steaming with anger and frustration.

"Hn, I was about to leave anyway, the last thing I want to do is spend my time around you losers." Paul shoves his hands in his pockets, and walks away.

Dawn stood there with her hands clenched, "Uuugh, I hate that guy so much." She hissed.

"Me too." Ash added. Brock stood there watching his friends, talk about how much they hate Paul when he noticed dark clouds were beginning to form in the distance.

"Hey guys, it looks like it's going to rain, we should probably find a pokemon center and stay there for the night." Brock suggested.

"But…what about my contest?" Dawn innocently asked.

"Don't worry Dawn, we'll start heading there first thing in the morning." Brock assured.

She smiled, "You're right, besides I don't want to get my hair wet."

But ironic enough, on their way to the pokemon center, it started raining. "My hair! Oh, today can't get any worse."

* * *

**Or could it? You'll have to figure out next time!**

**I'll update soon, promise XP**

**-Love VideoGameChic **


	2. Hindering Rain

**Thanks for all the nice reviews everybody. I really appreciate it. **

**So here's chapter two! **

**They're finally at the Pokemon Center, but is that a good thing?**

* * *

It was late afternoon, early evening by the time they arrived at the pokemon center. Dawn was cold, wet, and overall annoyed, 'Stupid rain'. They walked up to the front counter where a frantic Nurse Joy scrambled through the drawers. They patiently waited as she continued searching.

"Do you need any help finding something Nurse Joy?"

"Ummm no, that's ok" She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a small bottle.

"Ah! Here they are! Huh?"

She shook the bottle and didn't hear anything, so she twisted off the top, looked in, and didn't see anything

"Actually, I do need some help"

Brock took this opportunity to make a move.

"Oh my dear Nurse Joy, I am here to help you with anything you need. My heart beats to serve you my beautiful Nurse Jo-"

Croagunk used poison jab to interrupt Brock's scene. Brock falls to the floor and twitches as Croagunk drags him away, leaving Ash and Dawn to face palm.

"Well what do you need help with?" Ash asks.

"Well, one of the Pokemon I'm treating needs this medicine, but there's none left"

"Do you know where to get anymore?"

"There may be some in the storage closet on the other side of the Pokemon center, but I don't have time to go check. Could one of you go check for me?"

"I'll go look for you" Dawn said.

"You sure you want to go alone Dawn?"

"Don't worry Ash, it's only a Pokemon Center, what could possibly happen"

Ash smirked. "Well this Pokemon center is pretty big, you might get lost, you know how you can be"

Dawn playfully shoved Ash. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ash laughed "Calm down Dawn, I'm just kidding"

Dawn laughed along with Ash "I know, but seriously, don't worry, I'll be back soon, here take my stuff and Piplup". She handed everything to Ash and with a final wave she skipped down the hallway.

With Brock now conscious, he walked over to Ash.

"Hey where'd Dawn go?"

"She went to go get something for Nurse Joy"

"Oh ok, then we'll just wait here until she gets back"

"First let's give our Pokemon to Nurse Joy, then let's watch some TV"

They gave their pokemon to a very busy Nurse Joy, then they both walked over to the couches and started watching TV with the other people that were in the main lobby.

Dawn was just walking through the corridors, making her way to the back of the center. '-Yawn- I'm tired, just grab the medicine, give it to Nurse Joy, then I can go to sleep. Simple' While walking down the hallway, she noticed the one person that she didn't want to see. 'Hey it's Paul' she thought, but then she remembered what happened earlier that day ' Oh, it's Paul' she sneered. 'Hmpft, just ignore him'

* * *

Paul was walking back to the main lobby from his room when he noticed Dawn walking his way. He just kept his hands in his pockets and walked by her. But at the second they crossed paths he felt something, something bad. He stopped and looked back at her as she continued down the hallway. 'That was weird' he thought. But being who he is, he decided to blow it off as nothing. "Hn, whatever". He continued down the hallway until he eventually reached the main lobby. There were a handful of people there, watching TV. Two of these people included Ash and Brock. On the TV was some game show where people did a whole bunch of random challenges with their pokemon to try and win prizes. The people in the lobby were all rooting for different contestents, getting excited whenever their person did well. Paul just stood there trying to pass time because he couldn't train due to the storm.

Two kids came running into the Pokemon center drenched in water. Everyone turned to look at the two boys.

"Wow, it is pouring out there!" One of the boys said.

"Yeah, it looks really bad, I don't think it's going to let up anytime soon"

A couple people sighed at the thought.

"Breaking News!"

Everyone turned their attention back to the TV. A woman with long red hair and yellow eyes appeared on the screen. With an over exaggerated hair flip, she began talking.

"Late afternoon today, an incident at the pokemon research facility left many people injured. After a devastating fire, many of the pokemon escaped, most notably the newly discovered ghost pokemon. I'm here with Professor Ryan to get the details. So professor, what do you have to say about this?"

A tall man with blond hair stood there. He looked like someone who cared more about other things then his job, which made people all the more nervous.

"Well we aren't sure how the fire started, but you shouldn't be alarmed, we have everything under control. We are currently in search of all the missing pokemon"

"What about the unknown pokemon, is it dangerous? Should we be concerned?"

"This pokemon hasn't been thoroughly studied yet. We aren't exactly sure of its capabilities, but don't be alarmed. We just suggest that you try not to encounter it, and if you do, don't engage it. But I am almost 100% sure that it I not dangerous" Even though he said it wasn't dangerous, the look of his face didn't exactly back that statement up, and that's what concerned most of the people in the room.

"And there you have it, I will keep you updated on the situation. This has been Miranda Peddleson for PokeNews Now"

And with that, the game show came back on, but most people didn't really want to watch anymore. "That's so scary" one person said. "Tell me about it, I hope I don't run into it"

"Man Brock, we should be careful tomorrow"

"Yeah, we better warn Dawn"

"Speaking of Dawn, where is she?"

Ash and Brock looked around for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Nurse Joy ran over to them

"Has Dawn come back yet?"

Ash looked at her, "No she hasn't, I hope she didn't get lost"

"Well tell me if you see her"

"We will"Brock assured.

Paul overheard the whole conversation, but acted like he didn't.

'It isn't my problem that that troublesome girl got herself lost'

He was about to start walking towards his room when all of a sudden the power went out. 'Just great' was the only thing he could think. A couple people scream and at least one person tripped. Nurse Joy pulled out a small lantern and put it on the coffee table between the couches. With the power out, almost everyone migrated into the lobby and huddled together around the now light fireplace that was against the wall underneath the TV.

"Ash, I'm really starting to worry, Dawn still isn't back"

"Yeah, you're right Brock, maybe we should go look for her"

"We can't, it's too dark"

"True"

"Well let's see if nurse joy has an extra lantern" As they stood up to leave Ash ran right into Paul.

"Hey, watch where you're going!"

"oh, sorry Paul"

"You better be"

"Why do you have to be so mean Paul?"

"Why should I go out of my way to be nice to a loser like you"

"What'd you say!"

They were in the midst of an argument when all of a sudden, a high pitch scream was heard. Everyone turned their attention to the dark hallway where the scream was heard.

"Help!. Someone help me!"

"Dawn!" Ash and Brock both yelled.

Ash runs up to Nurse joy. "Nurse joy, do you have an extra lantern with you?"

"I can check, but why not use your pokemon?"

"We gave them to you"

"Oh yeah, and with the power out, they won't come out of the healing machine"

"Please Nurse Joy, our friend is in danger and needs help"

"Oh dear, that is serious" She looked into one of the drawers and pulled out a lantern and handed it to Brock.

"Please be careful"

"We will" Brock assured.

Ash turned around. "Paul! You're coming with us!"

"Why do I have to come?"

"Because you owe it to Dawn, after all, she saved you earlier today. So the least you can do is help save her"

"Hn, Fine whatever"

Paul shoved is hands in his pockets, and followed Ash and Brock into the dark hallway as the search for Dawn Begins.

* * *

**This is just the beginning of the journey that will ensue!**

**Ok, so I'll try to update some time next week, see you all then!**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	3. An Eventful Beginning

**Ever since I've started this story, my typing skills have excelled. I'm trying to learn to type without looking at the keyboard. I'll get there eventually!**

**So here's chapter 3.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"Dawwwn!" Ash and Brock yelled down the dark corridor.

"Can you hear us?" No reply

"How far could she have gone? It's only a Pokemon Center."

"Well Ash, it's Dawn we're dealing with remember?"

"Yeah true, but I hope she's ok"

"I'm sure she's fine"

Paul just kept to himself, with his hands in his pockets, and walking at a distance behind Ash and Brock.

'This is so annoying. That troublesome girl gets herself lost, and now I have to waste my time looking for her'

The group continued down the corridor as they looked to see any traces of where she could be.

"Hey Brock, once we find Dawn, let's get something to eat, I'm starving"

Brock laughed. "Yeah, sure"

Paul just shook his head, but suddenly he felt a familiar feeling. He stopped dead in his tracks.

'This is the last place I saw that troublesome girl. Maybe if I stopped her then…'

He ran his hand through his hair. 'What am I saying, it's her fault for getting lost'

He looked up and realized he was falling behind. He was about to start walking when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He looked into one of the rooms next to him, squinting his eyes to see,

'Is something in there?'

Trying to look harder into the room, waiting for something to jump out when...

"Hey Paul, what's wrong?"

He snapped out of his thoughts

"Nothing I thought I saw something, but it must have been my imagination"

With one last look at the room, he turned around and continued down the hallway.

After walking down the hallway for awhile, and taking a turn ever now and then, things were beginning to get monotonous. So mainly out of boredom, Ash and Brock began to play charades while walking.

"Ummm, it's a Pokemon" Ash nodded, then he put the wrists of his hands on his lower jaw and started swaying them back and forth like fins. Then he sucked his cheeks in and puckered his lips.

"Fish type!" Ash nodded, and then he put his fist on his forehead and stuck his pointer finger out.

"Goldeen!"

"Yes!" They both laughed and Paul just shook his head.

"Ok, my turn" Brock yelled.

But suddenly the ground began to shake. They all tried to keep their balance and tried not to fall over.

"What's happening?" Ash said.

But as quick as it started, it ended.

"I wonder what that was" Brock questioned, but decided to ignore it. "In any case, we should keep moving."

They all turned around to keep walking until Ash heard something.

"Hey guys wait, I think I hear something"

They stopped walking and stood still, trying to hear what Ash was talking about.

"I think I hear it too" Brock said.

A faint whimper could be heard in the distance.

"Where is it coming from? Quick, everyone search a room!" Ash immediately runs into a dark room and Brock runs into another. Paul deciding that it would be easier to get this done quickly walks into another room. It looked like any other room in the Pokemon Centre, nothing out of the ordinary. It had 2 sets of bunk beds with a window on the wall in between. The window only let in a little bit of light, but it was enough for him to see. Paul could clearly hear the whimper sound, and it was coming from the one of the beds. Paul walked over to the bed and noticed a small hand sticking out from under it. He knelt down and noticed a little girl curled up under the bed crying.

"Hey little girl, are you ok?" The girl jumped a little bit from the sound of his voice. She looked up and noticed Paul there.

"Not really"

"Well what's wrong"

"I'm scared"

"Of what?"

"The dark"

"Well why are you here then"

"I was looking for my big sister when everything went dark, and I too scared to go anywhere alone, so I hid here"

Paul sighed, 'Just great'

* * *

"So Brock, did you find anything?"

"No, did you?"

"No"

"Hey, where's Paul?"

"I'm right here and unlike you two, I actually found the problem"

Next to Paul stood a little girl about the age of 5. She had short white hair and big blue eyes. She was wearing a white long sleeved shirt with a light blue overall dress on top and light blue sandals.

"Hi, my name is Katie! Who are you"

"My name is Ash"

"And I'm Brock, nice to meet you"

"Nice to meet you too" She had a huge smile, beaming across her face.

"I afraid of dark, so can I stay with you guys?" Ash and Brock looked at each other, and then back to the girl. "I guess so, we're just looking for our friend" Ash said

"Ooowww! I want to help! I love helping people!"

"Ok then, let's keep going" And with that, Ash turned around and started to walk down the hallway.

It wasn't long down the hallway when Katie decided to hold onto Paul's hand. He just sighed 'hate physical contact, but she's a little girl, I'm not going to push her on the floor and tell her to get off of me. She would probably start crying and that would just slow us down' In the end, Paul decided to just ignore the fact that she was holding his hand.

"So Mr. we're looking for your friend?"

"She's not my friend"

"Then why you look for her?"

"You wouldn't understand, you're just a little kid"

"Do you liiiike her?"

"What? No, you don't know what you're talking about"

Angered by his statement, Katie put her hand on her hip, and puffed out her cheeks.

"Hmpf, how do you know?"

"You've only known me for like 10 minutes, you know nothing about me"

"I know that you're Mr. Grumpy Face!"

Paul raises an eyebrow at her, and his questionable look made her breakout in a laugh

"You're funny Mr. I like you" The only thing Paul could do at this point was sigh.

"Whatever"

* * *

It had been maybe 5 minutes since their last conversation, and Paul was glad that she wasn't talking. She just held his hand and hummed to herself. Things actually seemed kind of peaceful. But every peace has to be interrupted by something eventually.

"What happened to the hallway?" Ash yelled. Where the hallway used to be was now a giant pill of rocks that blocked any way to the other side.

"You have got to be kidding me" Paul gritted through his teeth.

"Where do we go now Brock?" Ash asked.

Brock ran his hand through his hair. "Hold on let me think for a second"

They all stood there, waiting for Brock to come up with something. Katie just hummed to herself, looking around when something caught her eye.

"Hey, what's that?" She points her finger at something that is sticking out of the rock pile.

"Huh?" They all turned their attention onto what she was pointing at. It was something furry, something blue. It almost looked like blue hair.

"Dawn!" Ash yelled as he and Brock frantically starts pulling at the rocks.

The second that Ash said that, the only thought that came into Paul's head was the thought of Dawn being crush under that pile of rocks. His heart rate skyrocketed and he became almost panic stricken.'Why do I feel so worried all of a sudden? There's no way that I'm worried about that troublesome girl. If she's under there, then it's her own fault…right?'

Ash and Brock continued to pull at the rocks until they finally pulled enough out of the way to see what they were looking for. Everyone made a huge sigh of relief as they realized that it wasn't Dawn.

"It's just a doll" Ash said as he brushes the sweat off of his forehead.

"What a relief" Brock said.

Paul rolled his eyes."But we still have a problem, how are we going to get around this?"

Brock thought for a second. "Well, if we back track, and go through the cafeteria, then maybe we can find a way around if we go down another hallway"

Katie started jumping up and down, waving her arm through the air.

"Yeah! That's how I got here, I went through food place."

"So it's settled, we'll go through the cafeteria."

They all turned around and started heading in the opposite direction.

Paul sighed, 'This is going to take forever'

* * *

**You're damn right it's gonna take forever!**

**So I'll try to update either later this week, or next week. **

**Hope to see you then!**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	4. An Ongoing Reminder

**Ok, so I'm trying to improve my punctuation and grammar and stuff. It's not perfect, but I'm getting there don't worry.**

**But I'm really happy with how this story is coming out, so here's chapter 4.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"You're a pokemon trainer?" Katie yelled at the top of her lungs, a sparkle of amazement twinkling in her eyes. Paul just nodded his head.

Retracing their steps was a fairly boring task. The hallway was completely quiet, except for the sounds of the group's feet walking along the floor and their occasional conversation. Most of any conversation that went on came from Katie, who was a huge chatter box. If she wasn't swinging her arms around aimlessly, or laughing to herself, then she was talking; which to Paul's dismay was often.

"That's so cool, do you have pokemon too?" she asked.

Paul raised his eyebrow, "Yeah, I can't be a trainer if I don't have pokemon."

"Aw, I'm jealous. I can't wait until I'm old enough to have Pokemon. I want to be a coordinator just like my sister." Just the thought of it made a huge smile stretch across her face a she giggled to herself.

"I'm going to be so good, I'll beat everybody! Right Mr.?"

Paul was only half listening to anything that Katie said, after listening to her talk for a while; he lost interest in anything she said. He just rolled his eyes and sighed, "Yeah I guess, whatever."

Katie put her hands on her hips, "What? You think I can't do it?"

"I don't care ok? I really just do not care."

"Well maybe you should care considering I might be battling you one day."

"You would stand no chance against me, it wouldn't even be a battle. You'd be lucky if I even acknowledged you're existence. "

"What makes you so sure that you'll win?"

"Do you know how many pathetic trainers I defeat per day? You would be no better than any of those other losers."

Katie was obviously agitated by Paul's overall attitude. Her hands clutched together harder and harder, the angrier she became with Paul's shrewd statements.

"I don't believe you!" She yelled.

"Hn, if you don't believe me than ask that pathetic loser over there. I've crushed him so many times that it's too many to count." Paul lifted his arm, and pointed his finger at Ash.

Ash, having heard what Paul said, turned around to face him.

"Who are you calling a loser Paul?" Ash yelled.

"You obviously, who else would I be talking about?"

"Well I'm not a loser, so get your facts straights."

Katie was beyond angry with Paul, almost to the point of fury. So she let go of his hand, and jumped to Ash's side.

"Yeah! He's not a loser, so stop being so mean Mr.! Ashy is a great trainer…I think. So leave him alone. And I'm going to be a great coordinator one day, so there!"

Paul rolled his eyes. "Hn, whatever." He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked past Katie and Ash.

Ash turned to Katie, "Hey, thanks for backing me up Katie."

A little bit of blush spread across Katie's face, so she turned her head slightly to try and hide it. "No problem Ashy, I always got your back." She giggled. "Hey guys, I don't mean to interrupt you, but we should really keep moving. Paul has already continued on." Brock said.

Ash and Katie bother turned to realize that Paul was fairly far ahead of them.

Katie gasps "Oh my gosh! Mr. wait for me!"

She literally pushes Ash and Brock out of her way, and starts running in Paul's direction. When she finally catches up with him, she conjoins her hand with Paul's hand again, and starts laughing to herself. Paul looks down at her; smiling, laughing, acting as if she wasn't about to punch him in the face ten seconds ago. He just sighed. 'She's so weird.'

* * *

After backtracking for a little while, they had finally reached the hallway that leads to the cafeteria.

"Ok, the cafeteria shouldn't be far from here." Brock says.

They all turn down the hallway, and if you thought it was messy, that's just an understatement. There were bags and papers EVERYWHERE. It looked as if everyone literally dropped what they were doing and ran the second that the power went out.

"Watch your step everyone, you wouldn't want to trip over anything." Brock warned.

They nodded their heads, and continued into the corridor.

Even though the floor was covered in stuff, anyone with height could effortlessly travel through the hallway. But height was one department that Katie was lacking in, and her short stature made it difficult for her to navigate through the corridor without stumbling here and there. Katie's effort to try not to trip finally came to an end when she tripped over a bag that was lying in the middle of the floor. Being who he is, Paul let go of her hand the second she tripped, which resulted in her doing a face plant into the cold hard floor. With absolutely no motion to try and help her, Paul just steps over her body and continues walking forward. Katie picks herself up off of the floor, dusts herself off and jogs to catch up with Paul. She holds onto his hand like usual, and starts rubbing her face with her other hand.

"You didn't even try to help me Mr., that wasn't very nice."

"Who said I was nice, and why should I waste my time helping you?"

"Do you always treat your friends like this?"

"Who needs friends, their-"

"Awww, you have no friends? That's so sad, no wonder you're so mean."

"Friends are a waste of time, they would just get in my way."

"It's ok Mr. I'll be your friend." With a huge smile on her face, Katie giggled, and swung her and Paul's arms back and forth. Paul was about to say something back to her until he looked at her, I mean REALLY looked at her. Her big shiny blue eyes that twinkled every time she laughed, her unending generosity that she spread to everyone in her path, she almost perfectly mirrored someone he knew, she was almost an exact copy.

"Troublesome…"

"What?" Katie asked, evidently confused by his random statement.

"You….just remind me of that troublesome girl, that's all."

Katie slightly tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Who?"

"The girl we're looking for, you remind me of her."

Katie straightened her head upright and blinked a couple times. "How?"

Paul sighed and turned his head away from Katie's line of view. "Always smiling and laughing, and always wanting to help people. That's exactly what she's like. I don't get how you guys can be like that."

Katie crossed her arms and pursed her lips. "Well I think she sounds great, I don't know why you hate her so much."

Paul almost immediately turned his full attention back to Katie. "I don't hate her, she's just…annoying."

Even though she wasn't completely convinced, Katie decided to drop the conversation for now. She unfolded her arms and held Paul's hand again. "Yeah ok, whatever you say."

Paul could hear the sarcasm in her voice, but decided not to say anything, so he sighed. 'Can't get a break with this girl.'

* * *

Maybe two or three minutes after Katie and Paul's last conversation, the group finally reached the cafeteria. Brock reaches his arms out, and pushes open the big double doors. The cafeteria was big, dark, and pretty creepy. Most of the room was filled with tables and chairs, with different doorways along the walls.

"I didn't realize that there was more than one hallway leading into here." Brock says.

"I'm going to look at the map on the wall, to see which hallway we should take." Brock walks over to the wall and begins looking on the map.

"Ok, so if we go down the hallway on out left, we should be able to get to the same hallway we were supposed to be on. Everyone ready?" Brock asks. Just when Ash was about to answer, his stomach growled. "Hey Brock, before we continue on, can we take a break and get something to eat? We are in a cafeteria after all and I'm really hungry." Brock laughed a little, and nodded his head. "You're probably right. Let's take a quick break." Brock turns to Paul and Katie, "You guys ok with that?" Katie screams "Yes!" with extreme enthusiasm while Paul doesn't even bother to answer. "Alright, it's settled, we'll take a break." And with that Brock and Ash disappeared into one of the food places that lined the cafeteria. The large room was dark, but not dark enough so that they couldn't see what was right in front of them.

"Hey Mr. we should go look in there." Katie pointed to one of the food places with so much excitement that she was almost jumping up and down. Without even having time to reply, Katie starts pulling Paul towards the kitchen hoping to find something to eat. They pushed open the double doors and walk into the dark room. As soon as they got in the room, Katie let's go of Paul's hand and starts running through the kitchen.

'I'm not even hungry." Paul thought. "But I better wait for her."

He looks around the room; it was about medium sized with cabinets and counters everywhere. Against the wall to the left was two stove top ovens between some counters, and some cooking utensils spread across the counters and on the floor. In general, the kitchen looked odd; things thrown everywhere, no organization, it was as if the people in here had been dragged out in the middle of their work. But Paul wasn't going to waste his time thinking about it, so he walks over to the counters near the stove and just leans up against them. He puts one of his hands on the counter, and uses his other hand to brush back the hair on his forehead.

He sighs, 'This has been such a hectic day, and I feel like it's never going to end.' He closes his eyes and titles his head back. 'This pokemon center is like a maze. Even if we find that troublesome girl, we still have to get back to the lobby which could probably prove to be more challenging then getting to her in the first place. Why did I have to get dragged into this? Why did she have to get lost? Why won't this little girl Katie leave me alone?'

Varies questions were just flowing through Paul's head, he was so consumed with his thought that he didn't realize that his hand on the counter was slowly shifting towards the stove. He didn't realize it until his hand got so close that it was practically touching it and then tsssssss….

"OUCH!" He yelled as he quickly pulled his hand away from the hot stove.

"Who leaves a stove top on, and then just walks away?" He growls.

He rubs his hand a little, turns around, and turns off the stove. "Are you ok Mr.?" Paul jumps at the sudden sound of Katie's voice. He turns around and sees her standing there with her head tilted to the side and a questioning look on her face. Paul looked down at his hand, and saw a small burn mark.

"Yeah I'm fine, just a small burn nothing too bad."

"Ooowww, I'll kiss it and make it all better!" Katie skips over to Paul, grabs his hand, and plants a small kiss on his burn. She then throws her hands up in the air, yells "All Better!" and proceeds to start spinning in circles and dancing around as if she had just given Paul successful heart surgery. While Katie was doing her victory dance, Paul squinted his eyes at her. 'Where did she come from? I didn't even hear her coming, she just popped up out of nowhere. Come to think of it, as soon as we entered the kitchen she pretty much disappeared. I didn't hear anything from her until I got burned.' Paul looked at Katie to see that she was still dancing and laughing about her so called accomplishment.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, 'What do I expect? She's a total weirdo, I shouldn't be surprised that she just shows up out of nowhere.' He looks back at her and notices that she is still dancing.

"Are you ready yet?" Paul asks in an aggravated tone. Katie stops dancing and looks up at Paul who was impatiently waiting for her. She blushes a little and scratches the back of her head. "Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot you were there." Paul raises his eyebrow in a way that says "How'd you forget I was here?" and Katie shakes her head in a way that says "Don't ask.", then Paul rolls his eyes in a way that says "Whatever". (High fives if you silent talk with people through looks XD)

After a short moment of awkwardness, Paul decided that they weren't going to get anywhere by sitting in the kitchen. "Let's just get out of here and go find that loser and his friend." Katie nodded her head in excitement to his idea, and ran to his side. Paul put his hand onto one of the double doors and started to push it open when suddenly it hit something….or someone.

"Oh my face! My beautiful face uuuggghh!"Yelled the voice on the other side of the door.

Realizing that he had just hit someone with the door, Paul let go of it, and instead opened the door next to it. Paul and Katie stepped out of the kitchen and noticed a girl standing there clutching her face and yelling any word that came to her mind. "You stupid, insolent, idiotic, careless foo-"In the middle of her rant, she let go of her face long enough to see Paul standing there with a none caring look on his face. She immediately stopped talking the second she say him, blinked a couple times, and then smiled. "Oooow you're cute."

* * *

**Yeah he is!**

**So, who is the new girl? Wanna know, find out in the next chapter which will most likely come out next week.**

**Haha, I think it's kind of funny. When I outlined the whole story a couple weeks ago (Yes I outlined the story, I WILL finish it.), the original chapter 3 was the previous chapter, this chapter, and the next chapter. But when I started writing it I realized that it was too big to put in one chapter, so congratulations, you now have 3 separate chapters.**

**See you all next week!**

**-Love VideoGamechic**


	5. The Reminder's Opposite

**I've been so distracted this past week and a half so I'm sorry if this chapter seems a little sloppy.**

**But busy or not, I shall continue to update so here's chapter 5.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

"Hi, my name is Tiffany."

In front of Paul and Katie stood a girl that had her hand out, waiting for a handshake and a giant smirk plastered on her face. She had long dark purple hair, big red eyes and was a little shorter than Paul. She was wearing a black shirt with the sleeves going midway down her arms, a dark purple skirt, and black boots with purple laces that had a small heel on them that clicked when she walked. She had silver bracelets around her wrists and a dark purple head band and dark makeup that surrounded her eyes. In general, she was a very pretty girl but Paul wasn't even close to being remotely interested in her. With a complete lack of interest, Paul was ready to just walk away, but Katie had different plans.

"Hi sissy, where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere!" She yelled.

Tiffany shot her sister a glare.

"Oh, it's you." She sneered at Katie, obviously not happy to see her.

"Look Katie, I'd love to sit here and catch up with you, but I'd much rather talk to Mr. Cutie over here." Tiffany turned her attention back to Paul.

"So how about it? Me, you, and a smoothie at the table over there?"

"How about no, I'm far too busy to waste my time on someone like you." Paul replied, and began to walk off.

Tiffany gasped at his answer. "What do you mean no? I'm the prettiest girl you will ever meet!"

"Does it look like I care?" Paul said back, not even bothering to look back at the expression on her face.

Tiffany was furious, 'Nobody rejects me!' She thought 'If he wasn't so cute, then I would…I would…uugghh!' Deciding to let it go for now, she ran to catch up with them. They started to weave their way around the tables and chairs until Paul stopped walking and started looking around.

"What are you even looking for?" Tiffany asked.

"Just some guys I know." Paul answered.

"Hey Paul, Katie, we're over here!"

They all turned their heads to the left and saw Ash waving his arms in the air. He and Brock were sitting at a table with two other girls, one with teal hair and the other with bright pink hair. Paul, Katie and Tiffany walked over to the table and joined the group.

"Hey Paul, you found somebody too." Ash said. "We ran into these two girls while we were getting food. I guess they had the same idea as us." The two girls laughed at Ash's statement.

"Yeah, we were really hungry." One of the girls said, the other one just nodded her head.

Taking absolutely no time to wait, Katie throws her free hand up in the air and introduces herself.

"Hi I'm Katie!" She yells.

The two girls with Ash laughed a little and then wave back at Katie.

"Hi, I'm Emily." The teal haired one said.

"And I'm Claire, nice to meet you Katie." The Pink haired one said.

"Nice to meet you too, this is my sister Tiffany and my friend Paul." Katie replied.

The two girls just waved at Paul and Tiffany. Katie tugged on Tiffany's skirt until Tiffany looked at her.

"Sissy, that's Ashy and that's Rock." She said as she pointed at said people.

"Actually, it's Brock, with a B." Brock said.

Katie and Tiffany both looked at him as if he was crazy.

"Got it, Emily, Claire, Ash and Rock." Tiffany repeated.

"No, no, no it's Bro-"

"I…don't care." Tiffany said as she walked over next to Claire, and sat in an empty seat.

Brock just hung his head in shame. Katie turned her attention back to Paul.

"Hey Mr. I want to sit down, where should we sit?" Paul was about to start looking when Tiffany decided to find a seat for him.

"Hey Paul, there's a seat next to me." She said as she patted the seat next to her. Paul rolled his eyes and he and Katie walked over to her. As soon as Katie sits in the seat, Tiffany pushes her off.

"This seat's not for you, it's for Paul." She sneered, than she smiled up at Paul and batted her eye lashes in the girliest fashion possible. Paul rolled his eyes, sat in the seat and crossed his arms. Katie puffed out her cheeks in anger, "Hmpt." She pushed a chair on the other side of Paul and sat in it with her arms crossed.

"So girls, why are you in this part of the Pokemon center, shouldn't you be in the lobby with everyone else?" Brock asked.

"Well, me and Claire are looking for our friend Stacy. When the power went out we all started heading for the main lobby when all of a sudden she like vanished." Emily said.

"Yeah, it was really weird. She was there one second, and gone the next." Claire added.

Brock put his hand on his chin, "That is strange; we're looking for our friend also. Her name is Dawn, blue hair, pink boots, about this tall. Have you seen her?" The two girls shook their heads.

"What are you doing out here Tiffany?" Ash asked.

Tiffany stopped drooling over Paul and started twiddling her thumbs together.

"I ummm….am….also looking for my friend, yeah. Her name is…..Candy, yeah Candy. I'm looking for my friend Candy." She oddly replied.

As strange as her reply was, everyone turned their attention to Brock instead of questioning her.

"Well if we're all looking for someone, we might as well stick together." Brock suggests.

Everyone (Minus Paul) nodded their heads. "Good idea Brock, the more the merrier." Ash said.

"Hey guys, before we go anywhere I just want to check my email real quick." Claire said as she began taking her laptop out of her bag.

"I needed to take a break anyway." Tiffany scoffed.

Claire ignored Tiffany's statement, and opened up her laptop. "Hey, there's a news update on that missing Pokemon, do you guys want to see it?" Claire asked. Everyone shifted their chairs around Claire as she opened up the video.

As the video started playing, they could hear news like music playing in the background as the same news woman from before showed up on the screen.

"Breaking News! I am here again with Professor Ryan to get an update about the missing Pokemon. So professor, has the facility made any progress on capturing the escaped Pokemon?"

"Well, we are trying as hard as we can to find it, but this is a tricky Pokemon we are dealing with."

While watching the video, Paul looked down for one second and noticed Katie was braiding his hair. "What are you doing?" He asked. "Braiding your pretty hair silly." Katie replied. He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the laptop. The news reporter was still badgering the professor.

"So are you saying that it's dangerous? Can it fly? Does it blow fire? Should we be concerned?" The reporter questioned.

"It's not dangerous, we have this situation completely under control."

"How long until it is caught? Should we be in panic? Is the facility hiding stuff from us? The public wants to know." The reporter yelled as she practically shoving the microphone in the professor's face. The professor put his hands in front of him in a defensive manner.

"No, no, no it's not-awww man I dropped my nachos"

Tiffany grabbed the top of the laptop and closed it, which shut off the video.

"This is ridiculous, there is no escaped Pokemon. I bet it's just a hoax to get attention." Tiffany yelled.

Claire and Emily were both hugging each other, shivering with fear.

"But what if there really is an escaped Pokemon?" Claire said.

"What if it got Stacy?" Emily added.

"Oh no!" Both girls yelled simultaneously. Tiffany cringed at the loud scream from the girls.

"Even if this Pokemon really did escape, I don't think she would be all the way over here, so calm down." Tiffany said.

Claire narrowed her eyes at Tiffany.

"How do you know it's a she?" Claire asked her.

Tiffany sent Claire a glare that could kill. "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know we were being so technical." Tiffany hissed.

Ash jumped in between the two girls in hopes of stopping the argument. "Hey come on guys, whether there really is an escaped Pokemon or not, our friends are still missing. So we should probably keep moving." Ash said as sweat ran down the side of his head.

Tiffany crossed her arms and sighed, "Fine. Besides, us girls need to stick together right?" Tiffany said as she looked over at Emily and Claire.

They looked at each other and shrugged, "I guess so." Emily said.

"Claire, you got a flashlight right?" Tiffany asked.

"Ummm, yeah. It's right here." Claire picked her flashlight up from the table and turned it on.

"Good, then let's get going." Tiffany said as she turned around and started walking towards the hallway. Emily and Claire both followed Tiffany down towards the dark hallway, leaving Ash, Brock, Paul and Katie behind.

Ash ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "Oh man Brock, I feel like we're never going to find Dawn."

"I'm worried about her too Ash, but I'm sure we'll find her. We just need to keep looking." Brock assured.

"Hey!" They turned their attention to the right where they see Tiffany waving her arms in the air. "Are you guys coming?"

"Yeah, we're coming." Ash yelled. They all turned around and started walking towards Tiffany, Claire and Emily. Paul walked in the very back with Katie. He wasn't paying any attention to what was going on, he was far to occupied with his thoughts.

This one question just rang through Paul's head over and over again. 'What if we don't find her?'

* * *

**Sorry if there's a lack in detail and anything else. I was trying to finish this late at night and I got to a point where I couldn't even think straight. But I really wanted to finish so I did.**

**But I promise that the next chapter will be a lot better.**

**I'll update soon.**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	6. Extreme Sister Rivalry, Right?

**A thousand thank you's for the wonderful reviews! They keep me going.**

**Ok, so nothing huge really happens in this chapter, it's mostly character and relationship development. But it's far from being bland my friends!**

**So without delay, here's chapter 6!**

**Be entertained!**

* * *

A hallway's a hallway; it's narrow, has many doors, and is meant to get you from one part of a building to another. But in this situation, it's not your average hallway. It was long, dark, and very cold, not to mention the ominous feeling that was lurking around. The group could only see what was right in front of them and right behind them. And if that didn't freak them out enough, then the foreboding silence was enough to send them running. But everyone in the group had a goal, a goal that pressed them forward, a goal that kept them from turning around and walking away. And whatever goal they had, it was different then the people around them. At this moment, Brock leads the group in front. Behind him was Ash, than came Claire and Emily, followed by Paul, Tiffany and Katie. By now, the group had been walking for while, and boredom seemed to be the one thing that everyone had in common. But when you have as much energy as Katie does, you never accept defeat.

"Mr. I'm bored." Katie said to Paul with demand in her voice.

"Well so am I but you don't hear me complaining." Paul replied.

Katie sighed and looked around at the group. They looked just as bored as she was.

"I know!" Katie yelled. "I'll make everybody happy by singing my favorite song."

Katie sucked in her chest, took a deep breath, and with a huge smile on her face, she began singing, if that's what you can call it. "LAAAAA lalalalala! The sun's rising, it's morning and time to wake up! Wake upppp! Wake upppp! WAKE UP!" Katie was practically screaming the last words of her song. Everyone cringed at Katie's high pitch voice and covered their ears to try and block out the noise.

Paul immediately let go of Katie's hand to cover his ears, her screaming hurt his head like crazy. A headache began growing in the back of his head and his vision was becoming fuzzy.

'Why do I feel so dizzy all of a sudden?' Paul thought.

The last words of Katie's song seemed to go on forever, as if they were never going to end. But in times like these, sometimes blunt people can be the best people.

"Katie, shut up! No one wants to hear your stupid song!" Tiffany viciously yelled.

Katie almost instantly stopped singing. Everyone sighed in relief as they let go of their ears. Paul rubbed the sweat off of his forehead as his vision restored and his headache went away. 'I wonder what that was all about." Paul thought to himself, but he didn't really get a lot of time to think considering the fact that Katie and Tiffany were now arguing.

"It's not a stupid song Tiffany!" Katie yelled.

"Yes it is!" Tiffany yelled back.

"Well no one asked you what you think so shut up!"

"What did you say you little runt?" Tiffany yelled at Katie.

Katie and Tiffany had their foreheads pushed into each other. You could practically see lightening shooting between their eyes. Brock runs in between the two sisters hoping to break up the fight. "Hey come on guys, we're all friends here. Let's just take a deep and calm down." The girls narrowed their eyes at each other with so much hatred that it was practically radiating off of them.

"Fine." Katie snorted.

Katie walked over to Paul and like usual held onto his hand.

"OK, let's keep moving." Brock said.

Everyone (Minus Tiffany) turned around and started walking down the hallway. Tiffany stood there, motionless, staring daggers at Katie. 'This little girl is really starting to get in my way! Look at her, always with Paul, little Miss Nice and Perfect. Why won't she go away, why can't I get rid of her?'

Tiffany smirked to herself. 'If you want something done, you've got to do it yourself.'

Katie just walked next to Paul, holding his hand, humming to herself, trying to calm herself down when all of a sudden Tiffany jump kicks her in the face out of nowhere! Katie's hand tears away from Paul's as her face slams into the ground, and not to her surprise, Paul keeps walking. Tiffany takes Katie's place next to Paul, and smiles at him. He raises an eyebrow at her, but she just bats her eyelashes in a girly fashion. Katie picks herself up off of the floor and gasps angrily.

'Oh she did not?' Katie yelled in her head.

She ran to try and take Tiffany out, but Tiffany effortlessly held Katie back with just one of her hands. Tiffany easily pushed Katie back onto the floor as she continued to drool over Paul. Katie looked up and realized that she was beginning to fall behind the group. She got up, crossed her arms. 'You win this round Tiff' Katie silently thought to herself. She sighed heavily and settled for walking behind Tiff and Paul.

Tiff was completely enjoying herself. Katie was out of her way, and she was getting to spend time with Paul, even if he didn't care.

"So Paul, what are you doing out here with those losers up there? They don't seem like your type of friends." Tiffany said.

"They're not my my friends, they're the friends of the person we're looking for." Paul simply replied.

"Oh...well this is a total waste of time right? Doesn't it sound so much better to just go back to the lobby with me?" Tiffany purred.

Paul rolled his eyes at Tiff's continued advances on him. "No, it doesn't. I'm out here with those losers because I have to help them find this girl Dawn, plain and simple." Paul said.

"A girl? You…don't like her you, right? I mean, if she hangs out with those losers, she must be really pathetic." Tiff's statement caught Paul's attention.

"What?" Paul asked with a hint of anger in his voice.

"I'm serious, I mean, she's obviously not nearly as pretty as me because no one is. If you're looking for her, then that means that she got herself lost, so she must be stupid. I bet she's an ugly, ditzy, helpless, good for nothing los-"

"Why are you talking to me again Tiffany?" Paul harshly asked.

Tiff was a little taken back from Paul raise in tone. She blinked a couple times, not sure how to answer.

"Well…um…because…I…"

"Exactly, so leave me alone. Let's go Katie." Paul angrily said.

He stuck his hand out as Katie happily grabbed onto it and stuck her tongue back at Tiff as they continued to walk down the hallway. Tiffany stopped walking as everyone continued, she was completely stunned. 'What just happened?' She thought to herself.

Paul walked down the hallway, trying to calm himself down.

'Why did I get so mad all of a sudden when Tiffany started talking about that troublesome girl? It was so weird, I just became so frustrated. I mean, she doesn't even know her, she can't just talk about her like that.' He thought to himself.

He ran his hand through his hair, which ultimately destroyed the braids that Katie had made during their break in the cafeteria. Katie gasped in devastation, and was about to say something when she noticed how agitated Paul looked. She looked the other way and tried to think of someway to make him feel better, then an idea popped into her little mind. Paul wasn't even paying attention to Katie until she out of nowhere hugged onto his leg. He stopped walking and looked down at her. Considering the fact that Katie was about half Paul's height, the most she could do was hug his leg, but that wasn't going to stop her from trying to comfort him the best way she could. Her eyes beamed bright with happiness and she smiled her trademark platinum smile and giggled a little to herself. It really was a sweet gesture, so sweet that it almost made Paul smile, emphasis almost. It really was a heartwarming moment, but it soon came to an abrupt end when Katie said her next statement.

"Don't worry Mr. we'll find your girlfriend."

Paul sighed heavily, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head.

"She's not my girlfriend." Paul said under his breath.

He then proceeded to tear his leg out of Katie's grasp, and continued walking forward, leaving Katie in the dust. Katie stood there for a moment, completely puzzled by what she had done wrong. But seeing as she was falling behind, she decided to let it go. "Hey Mr. wait for m-" Halfway through her sentence, something caught her attention, and she stopped dead in her tracks. Noticing that something was wrong, the group stopped and turned around to face Katie.

"Hey Katie, what's wrong?" Ash asked in a concerned tone.

She didn't say anything, she just stood there paralyzed with fear, staring at the darkness that engulfed the hallway behind them.

"Katie?" Ash asked again.

But it didn't take long for the rest of the group to realize the problem. And even though everyone realized it, Claire was the one and only one to voice the concern.

"Where's Tiffany?"

* * *

**Yeah, where's Tiffany bitches?**

**Did she get snatched? Did she go back to the lobby? Is she the Pokemon? Or is it something else?**

**You'll just have to figure it out in the next chapter when things start going down!**

**See you all then!**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	7. All Hell Breaks Loss

**In my opinion, this is a really long chapter compared to my other ones. But I was determined not to break this chapter into two like I've been doing for a while. This is still technically part of my original chapter 3, but by the end of this chapter, you will finally reach my original chapter 4!**

**And by the way, you guys' reviews are so funny. I didn't realize how much you hated Tiffany. But every story needs an antagonist, so sadly her existence must stay for now.**

**So luxuriate in chapter 7!**

* * *

Everyone scanned the hallway for any trace of Tiffany. She was nowhere to be found.

"Should we go back and look for her?" Claire hesitantly asked.

The group started to look at each other, to see what everyone else thought.

"No." Paul simply answered.

"Are you sure?" Emily asked.

"Yes, I'm very sure, we should keep going."

"But what if something happened to her?"

"I'm sure she's perfectly fine. She can handle herself."

"Bu-"

"Let's keep moving." Paul concluded and began pushing Emily forward which forced the group to keep walking. Even though everyone was still uneasy about Tiffany's sudden disappearance, that wasn't going to stop them from continuing forward.

The hallway was getting colder, the air was becoming more foreboding, and things weren't exactly looking up for the group. The trip through the Pokemon center seemed to be getting longer and longer every minute. Emily for one seemed to be the first one to notice. As she walked next to Claire, she would stare forward at the hallway in front of her. The more they walked the longer it grew, and that just plain freaked her out.

'Is it me, or does the hallway look like it's growing longer?' Emily thought to herself.

Her speculation grew more and more true as the hallway stretched further out. "Hey guys, does the-" Before Emily could finish her statement, the ground began to shake. Claire dropped her flashlight which turned it off, and Brock's lantern suddenly shut off. The shaking soon stopping, but the effects of it left the group in the dark. At this point, you couldn't even tell who was talking, you just hear voices in the darkness.

"Aaaahhh!"

"Where's my flashlight?"

"Wake up!"

"Don't push me!"

"I didn't!"

"Everyone just calm down."

"Someone help me look for my flashlight."

"Brock, turn your lantern back on!"

"I'm trying."

"We'll not hard enough."

"I think I found my flashlight."

"My foot hurts."

By now, the only noises you can hear is the arguing group, the sounds of their fumbling bodies, and Claire slapping the side of her flashlight. After a couple slaps, the light comes back on and provided the group with a light source. Brock turns the knob of his lantern a little more, and that too comes back on.

"Everyone ok?" Brock asked as the group all nodded their heads.

"Wait, where's Ash?" Brock asked with concern in his voice.

Everyone looked around the hallway, but he was nowhere to be found. Emily and Claire hugged each other in fear, Katie tightened her grip on Paul's hand, and Brock looked around more.

"Where'd he go?" Claire asked. "He was here a minute ago." Emily added.

Everyone stared at the dark hallway behind them, afraid that something was going to jump out. All of a sudden a loud bang shakes the ground a little, and it freaked everybody out to the point where they just broke out in a full fledge sprint down the hallway. Without looking back they just ran forward, afraid something was going to grab them. Claire being the most afraid ran the fastest, being far ahead of the group. She ran down the hallway, heart beating so fast that it could explode. She ran, she slide, she turned the corner, and BAM. She ran head first into…Tiffany?

"Ouch, my face!" Tiffany yelled.

When the rest of the group caught up, they all looked in confusion as Tiffany and Claire lay on the floor rubbing their faces. Claire looked up and realized what she had run into.

"Tiffany?" She asked, unsure how to respond. "Where have you been?" She asked.

"Where have I been? Where have you been?!" Tiffany hissed.

Emily helped Claire up off of the floor and Claire proceeded to dust herself off.

"You just vanished out of nowhere." Claire said.

Tiffany picked herself off of the floor and put her hands on her hips.

"No I didn't. I stopped to tie my shoe for two minutes, look up, and you guys are completely gone. No where to be found. I even yelled your names down the hallway and got no reply."

"Then how could you see where you were going?" Emily asked with suspicion.

Tiffany narrowed her eyes at Emily. "I'm not stupid Emily, I first just scaled along the wall, and then I tripped over this flashlight so I used it." Tiffany harshly replied.

"Then how did you come from that direction if we came from that way?" Claire asked.

"How should I know, I just kept walking straight and eventually you ran into me."

Brock put his hand on his chin and thought for a second. But Emily wasn't going to sit here and do nothing. She looked around at their surroundings. They seemed to be at an intersection of hallways, and that's what caught her eye. She jumped in front of the group, and got everyone's attention.

"This is ridiculous! Look at us walking in circles and wasting our time. Doesn't anyone realize that this doesn't make sense? We have been walking for hours, what Pokemon center is THAT big, seriously! Do any of you even remember an intersection even being here? Guys, something is playing games with us. Ash is nowhere to be found, the hallways keep changing, it getting colder by the minute, and I'm just plain sick of it."

Emily continued to rant on as everyone watched her, but that's when everything took a turn for the worst. Suddenly a giant smoky hand crept out of the darkness of one of the hallways and loomed over Emily. When the group noticed, they all frantically started pointing at it to get Emily's attention. But as soon as she noticed what was wrong, it grabbed her and sucked her into the darkness.

That's when all hell broke loose. Claire starts screaming, Katie somehow gets separated from Paul, Tiffany drops her flashlight and Brock doesn't even know what to think. Tiffany grabs Claire and Paul by their arms and sprints down one of the hallways. Brock grabs Katie and heads down another hallway. And now everyone's separated.

* * *

Claire, Tiffany and Paul ran into one of the rooms and slammed the door behind them. Claire's crying, Paul's trying to catch his breath, Tiffany's trying to hold the door closed because something is pushing it on the other side. Everyone in the room right now was frantic.

"What do we do?! What do we do?!" Tiffany yelled at Paul.

"Just let me think! Ok? Just let me think!" Paul frantically answered.

Claire was kneeling up against the wall, hysterically crying.

"Emily! It just took her! It took Emily!" Claire yelled.

Tiffany ran over to Claire and slapped her clear across the face. Then she grabbed the collar of Claire's shirt.

"Calm down, ok?! Just Calm down! Crying won't help her now, you need to be strong for the both of you." Tiffany responded.

Claire nodded her head and started to calm down.

"You're right." She said.

Tiffany helped Claire off the floor, and Claire proceeded to help Tiffany push one of the bunk beds in front of the door. Everyone sighed, and tried to take in what just happened.

"So, what's our next step?" Claire asked.

Paul ran his hand through his hair and thought for a second. "Well we obviously can't go back out that way." He said, pointing at the door. Tiffany put her hands on her hips in a huff and flipped her hair.

"I say we cut our losses and find our way back to the main lobby." Tiffany suggested.

Claire crossed her arms and walked straight up to Tiffany.

"I'm not leaving, I have to find my friends Tiffany. I won't give up on them." Claire sneered.

"Well Claire hun, I understand that you need to find your friends, but what'll you do if you get captured also? Besides, it's not like Paul has a real reason to be out here." Tiffany said as she smirked at Paul. Paul narrowed his eyes at Tiffany, obviously unhappy about being dragged into the argument.

"I'm out here because those idiots I'm with aren't going to find that troublesome girl. And if someone doesn't find her then she is going to get herself into more trouble, understand?" Paul harshly replied. Tiffany crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"Fine, we'll keep going. But we still need to find a way out of here."

* * *

Brock and Katie aimlessly walked down the hallway, with absolutely no sense of where they were going. They were still a bit shaken up by the previous event, but finding the rest of the group was the main priority. Brock held his lantern, and Katie just walked next to him.

"Rock, what do we do now?" Katie asked.

"Well right now, we're just trying to find the others." Brock said.

Katie sighed and looked around. Bland, dark, cold, everything was the same. But as they walked down the hallway a low growl could be heard in the far distance behind them.

* * *

Tiffany looked around the room they were in for any ideas. "There!" She yelled as she started walking towards the window.

"All we need to do is climb out this window and jump into-" As soon as she got to the window, she became petrified with fear. Yes it was still raining, but this wasn't normal rain anymore. Everything was purple and gooey and morphed in and out of each other. It was almost like looking into a lava lamp. Tiffany slowly started backing away from the window.

"What's going on?" She barely squeaked out.

Paul ran up to the window, and looked out it at the disfigured scene.

"This can't be possible." He said.

Claire had tears streaming down her face, as she roughly ran her hands through her hair. "This can't be happening, I must be dreaming, this isn't real." Claire yelled.

All of a sudden a giant black hand slammed into the window causing everyone to jump away from it. Then a giant bang was heard at the door which caused them to jump away from the door.

"What do we do now?" Tiffany yelled.

Paul frantically looked around the room until the air vent on the ceiling caught his eyes. "We can crawl through the air vent." He said.

"But it's all dusty and grimy and it'll mess up my hair and-" Tiffany was trying to reason with the group as another loud bang was heard at the door. Tiffany jumped at the noise and gasped, "Alright, the vent it is."

* * *

Another growl could be heard in the distance, but this time it was louder than before. Brock stopped walked and spread his arm in front of Katie.

"Katie hold on, do you hear that?" Brock asked her.

"That might just be my stomach." Katie said as she rubbed her belly.

Brock stood still as he listened closer to their surroundings. An even louder growl echoed through the hallway. "Come on Katie." Brock said as he grabbed her hand and started pulling her forward. The growl became louder the closer it became, and the closer it became the faster they ran.

* * *

The vent was small and compact, but not too small that they couldn't move. Paul was in front, and then came Tiffany, and Claire was in the back with the flashlight.

"Ewwwww, these vents are gross." Tiffany groaned.

"At least we aren't still trapped in that room." Claire said.

"I guess you're right." Tiffany sighed, but being who she is, Tiffany took this opportunity to make a move. "So Paul, if we follow the right vents, we can find our way back to the main lobby." Tiffany suggested.

"I already explained why I'm not going back Tiffany, so get over it." Paul harshly replied.

"Yeah but I'm sure they can find that girl on their own." Tiffany tried to reason.

Paul sighed, "Yeah well I want to make sure she's ok." Paul said.

Tiffany puffed her cheeks out in anger. 'Hmpf, what's so great about this girl anyway.' Tiff thought to herself. Claire being in the back, had to carry the flashlight. And trying to crawl through a vent with one hand holding you up and the other holding a flashlight is fairly tiring. Claire heavily sighed.

"Why do I have to carry the flashlight?" Claire asked.

"Because you're the only one that has one." Tiffany said.

"Well what happened to yours?" Claire questioned.

"I dropped it."

"When?!"

"When we were running from that thing."

"How'd you drop your flashlight?"

"What do you mean how'd I drop it? I just dropped it."

"That's really careless Tiffany. Even I didn't drop my flashlight."

"Yeah well everyone can't be as perfect at holding flashlights as you Claire." Tiffany sarcastically replied.

Paul rolled his eyes as the two girls continued to argue. After a little while, Paul had had enough.

"Can you guys shut up for 5 minutes so I can concentrate on where we're going!" Paul yelled.

Claire and Tiffany instantly stopped arguing and quieted down. Paul wiped the sweat off of his forehead and kept crawling forward. They kept crawling through the vents until they reached a sort of fork in the vents. Paul sighed and looked down both vents, trying to figure out which vent to go down.

'Ok, so should we go left or right?' He thought to himself.

He was trying to see down the vents, but Claire's flashlight was being uncooperative. The light went up, then to the left, and then it went all the way down and moved left and right. Paul couldn't see a thing with the light constantly shifting.

"Hey Claire, can you try to keep the light steady?" Paul asked out loud, but there was no reply.

"Hey Clai-" Paul and Tiffany both turned around to realize that Claire was no longer there. The flashlight rolled back and forth along the vent floor. Tiff's eyes widened as she realized that Claire was missing.

"Claire?" She said as her voice echoed through the vent. Claire may not have answered, but a loud growl did. Paul and Tiffany both jumped out of fear. Tiffany quickly grabbed Claire's flashlight and both her and Paul started frantically crawling down the left vent. They were both breathing heavily as they crawled as fast as they could through the vents.

"Go faster! Go faster!" Tiffany yelled at Paul.

"I'm trying, this is as fast as I can go!" Paul yelled back.

"Oh my god!" Tiffany yelled out of fear of getting grabbed. "I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!"

* * *

Katie was screaming at the top of her lungs. Her hands were stretched out in front of her and she ran as fast as she could. Every 5 seconds she looked behind her, and she didn't exactly see anything chasing them, but that didn't stop her from running. But during her quest for safety, she heard a yell in the distance. Being something she recognized, she made an abrupt stop and skidded along the floor until she completely stopped moving.

"Rock wait!" Katie yelled.

Brock stopped running and turning his attention to Katie.

"Katie, we have to keep going!" Brock yelled back to her.

"No Rock I think I hear something!" She said.

Brock ran over to Katie and tried to hear what she was talking about. That's when he heard something echoing above them.

"Dissatisfaction!" The girly voice yelled.

"It's coming from the vents." Brock said.

They looked above them and heard a large arrange of noises coming from the vents. They could hear screaming and rumbling and most importantly cracking. The noises got louder and louder until the vent finally gave out and Tiffany and Paul fell out. Paul landed on Brock, and Tiffany landed face first onto the hard tile. Tiffany really did a face plant, and I mean really. It was like doing a belly flop into a pool, except there wasn't any water, and this wasn't a pool. Her body made a loud slap noise when it hit the floor, and even Katie cringed at Tiffany's hard landing. Paul picked himself up and dusted himself off, and Brock did the same thing.

"Is anyone going to help me up?" Tiffany groaned.

"Where's Claire?" Brock asked.

"I guess not…" Tiffany said under her breath.

Paul looked at Brock and slowly shook his head, Brock took the hint. Katie's face light up when she say Paul. She jumped on Tiffany, jumped off, ran past Brock and hugged onto Paul's leg.

"Oh Mr. I was so worried about you! I'm so glad that you're OK!" Katie yelled as she looked up at Paul. Paul was a little taken back by Katie's overwhelming concern for him.

"Worried? Why would you be worried about me?" Paul asked.

Katie smiled her platinum smile and giggle. "Cause I care about you silly." She replied as if it was an obvious answer. Paul had no idea how to reply to her. 'Care about me? She doesn't even know me. And besides, I've only known her for a couple hours. I don't even know who she is….right?' He tried to reason with himself.

Brock for one was trying to figure out their next move, so he looked around at the scene in front of him: Paul was staring out into space, Katie was hugging Paul's leg, Tiffany was still on the floor, and half of the group was missing. Things weren't exactly looking positive, but Brock was determined to continue on. He helped Tiffany up off of the floor, snapped Paul out of his thoughts and Katie….well he left Katie alone.

"Alright guys, I know things are looking down but if we stick close together then we should be ok." Brock said.

Brock turned around and faced the hallway in front of them. "Considering the fact the Dawn was the first to go missing then I suggest we head for the storage closet because she was supposed to be there. If she were to be anywhere then she would be there. The storage closet shouldn't be too far from here. If Dawn's there, then everyone else should be there too." Brock said.

"But how do you know that she will be there?" Tiffany asked.

"Because there's nowhere else to look." Brock replied.

"Ok, let's go." Brock said as he started walking down the hallway. Tiffany sighed and followed suit. Katie grabbed onto Paul's hand and they started walking along with whatever was left of the group.

* * *

Katie sung her wake up song to herself which Paul extensively tried to ignore.

'It's so random, ever since she first sung that song it's the only thing she sings. She's like a broken record.' Paul thought to himself. But his thoughts were cut short as Tiffany once again tried to make a move. Tiffany sheepishly walked over next to Paul, with her big glowing eyes and her big puckered lips.

"Come on Paul, there's no guarantee that this girl will even be at the storage closet. So what's the point?"

"The point is that she might be there." Paul said.

"But can't we just wait for morning or something?" Tiffany asked.

"No." Paul simply replied.

"Why not?"

"Because that troublesome girl could get herself into even more trouble then she already is. That's why." Paul harshly replied as he walked ahead leaving Tiffany behind. Tiffany had had enough of this, she was furious. She ran in front of Paul, causing him to stop walking and pushes her flashlight into Katie's hands. Brock noticing the group stopped also stopped walking and watching as things began to become very heated.

"Look Paul, why are you so concerned about this girl?! Why is she so important to you, huh?!" Tiffany bluntly asked. Paul rolled his eyes, "I don't have time for this nonsense." He plainly stated, and pushed past Tiffany. But Tiffany wasn't going to give up that easily.

"Do you love her? Is that what it is?!" Tiffany yelled in contempt.

Paul stopped dead in his track and slowly turned is head.

"What?" He scornfully asked.

"You heard me. Do you love her?" Tiffany said as she walked up to Paul to the point where they face to face.

"No, I don't"

"Than you hate her?"

"I never said that Tiffany, so why don't you just mind your own business."

"Hmmm, how about no. Why mind mine when yours is so much more interesting. Why are you really out here? Why do you need to look for this girl?"

"Because I owe her, and it's not like these idiots can find her."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that Paul."

"I didn't ask for your opinion Tiffany."

"Well I'm saying it anyway. Your denial is so obvious that it's like reading the title on the cover of a book."

"What do you want from me Tiffany, huh? To declare my undying love for her?" Paul sarcastically said. "What is it that you want me to do?!"

"To forget her!"

"What is your problem?!"

"What's my problem? What's your problem?! Through this entire journey, you have always put her over me. I bet you that I'm better then her at everything. I'm better then all of these losers! I'm prettier, I'm smarter, I'm faster, stronger, overall greater! So how is it that you can choose anyone over me?!"

"Are you serious?! You think that you are so great. You are SO full of yourself!"

"ME! You of all people should not be talking to me about arrogance! Have you looked in a mirror?! You are as full of yourself as me."

"Yeah I know I may be full of myself, someone I know told me that. But I am nowhere as close as arrogant as you." "Don't make me laugh, you walk around calling everyone a loser. Am I right Brock?" Tiffany said as she snapped her finger and waited for backup, but of course it never came.

"Br…Brock?" Tiffany said as she looked over Paul's shoulder and noticed an empty hallway. Tiffany jumped behind Paul and clung onto his shoulder, and Katie moved closer to him. They heard a loud growl rumble in the darkness, and everyone jumped in fear. Paul quickly started to think of what they were going to do. He looked around and noticed a doorway leading down another hallway.

'I have no idea where that hallway came from but right now I don't care.' Paul thought as he grabbed the remaining two people and sprinted down the hallway. The only light they had was from the flashlight that Katie was holding, but light wasn't even a priority right now. They ran down a really long hallway. They turned, they ran, they skidded, they turned again, they ran and then they stopped. At this moment, they had finally reached their destination, the expected end of the journey, the storage closet.

Or…whatever was left of the storage closet.

* * *

**Yeah Bitches Yeah!**

**You would expect this to be the end of their journey, but sadly it's not. More sad news, there's only couple chapters left.**

**But some happy news, I feel like this was a really beast chapter! It's my favorite!**

**So I will see you guys later!**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	8. An Attainable Goal

**Ok, so I meant to type this up on sunday, but I obviously didn't do that. So I procrastinated it until today and I refused to wait until tomorrow even though I really wanted to.**

**But I got my lazy self up off of the couch and typed chapter 8. So here you go.**

**Paint your minds with chapter 8! (Having fun with my thesaurus)**

* * *

The storage closet was completely obliterated. The entire wall looked like it had been blown away. There were pieces of wood everywhere, water was dripping down the walls and you could see broken electrical wires hanging from the ceiling. But even though the scene was a total eye sore, that wasn't what freaked the group out. In the middle of the remains of the room was a giant hole on the floor, a hole that led to a tunnel. The group walked over to the hole and looked down it.

"It looks really dark and scary." Katie said as she tightened her grip on Paul's hand.

"This is no ordinary tunnel, something had to dig this." Paul said.

Tiffany took a step back. "Something big." She said.

Paul sighed and took a step closer to the hole. "Alright, let's go." He said.

Tiffany's eyes widened when she realized that Paul wanted them to go down the hole.

"Paul, you can't be serious. You can't seriously be considering going down that hole. Do you know how dangerous it could be? That's crazy." Tiffany yelled.

Paul was just plain tired by now, he didn't want to bother with Tiffany.

"I don't have time for your complaining Tiffany, I'm going to continue on, with or without you." Paul simply stated.

Tiffany ran up to Paul and grabbed his arm. "Paul please I beg of you, don't go down there. It's not worth the risk. Claire wanted to continue on looking for Emily, and look what happened to her. I don't want the same to happen to you, so please…just give up." Tiffany pleaded.

Paul stopped and looked at her, even though Tiffany was a complete and utter bitch, at this moment she was being completely sincere in her concern. It was true that there was no guarantee that Dawn would be at the end of this tunnel, but there was still a chance and that was the point. Paul looked away from Tiffany and sighed.

"Paul please." Tiffany begged.

Paul looked at the hole. 'She has to be down there.' Paul thought as he turned his attention back to Tiffany.

"I'm not leaving her." He said as tore his arm out of Tiffany's grip. Tiffany gasped in anger.

"We…well I'm not going, you are crazy out of your mind. I'm going back to the lobby!" She yelled.

"Fine, go ahead." Paul said.

"You…your not even going to stop me?" Tiffany asked.

"Nope." Paul turned away from Tiffany and looked down at Katie.

"Katie, you should go with your sister back to the lobby." Paul said as he looked at her. Katie shook her head and put her hand on her hip.

"I'm staying with you Mr. I'm not going to leave your side. I'm gonna stay with you until the end." Katie said with a huge smile on her face. Paul nodded his head and started climbing down the hole.

"How am I supposed too find my way back, Katie has the only flashlight!" Tiffany yelled.

"You'll manage." Paul said as he reached the bottom of the hole. Tiffany stomped her feet in a fit.

"You're a fool Paul, you are on a wild goose chase! You'll never find her, you are bound to fail!" The only thing Paul could hear now was the sound of Tiffany's yelling echoing through the tunnel. Her voice faded away after a little while and the tunnel became dead silent. It was now down to this, just them two. Paul and Katie walked down the dark tunnel and Paul couldn't help but sigh. The air in the tunnel was so dense that it was almost too hard to breath. It was so cold that it was to the point where they could see their own breath. The dirt walls were cold and wet, and the ground was hard. Paul had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling he wasn't to crazy about. He looked down at Katie who was singing her wake up song to herself.

'Poor girl probably doesn't know what she's getting herself into.' Paul thought to himself.

He knew that she was scared, he didn't know how he knew, but he could just feel it. Maybe it was the way she held his hand, or maybe the tone in her voice whenever she said something.

'I don't get it, if she is so scared, then why would she stay with me. Why not go with her sister? Before, she said that she cared about me, but how could she? We have only known each other for a couple hours. And it's not like I have been very nice to her either. I have been quite rude to her throughout this journey, yet she constantly worries for me. Maybe it's just because she is naïve. I mean she is only a child right?' Paul tried to reason through his thoughts, but he couldn't make any sense of it.

'It must be because of this whole situation. That's it, the trauma from today's events made her feel like she cares about me. It's probably because she just doesn't want to be alone. Trauma causes a lot of people to do crazy things. I mean, I'm in a dirt tunnel looking for that troublesome girl, how much crazier could things be? This little girl is obviously delusional; I mean no body cares about me, not even that troublesome girl. She thinks I'm a selfish jerk, she hates me.' Paul was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he didn't even realize that Katie had stopped singing her song.

'I'm out here risking my life to save this girl, and she probably won't even appreciate it.' Paul thought. He stopped walking and took a deep breath in. He didn't really want to think about his fruitless journey anymore, so he decided to turn his attention back to Katie.

"You have been really quiet Katie, are you ok?" But as soon as he looked down, he realized that Katie wasn't there. You would think that he would be surprised, but considering what had happened today, he wasn't really. The only thing that really stunned him was the fact that it had felt like she was still holding his hand.

'I didn't even feel her let go.' He thought.

He picked up the flashlight that now lay on the floor and shined it down the hallway behind him.

"Katie?" He said as his voice echoed down the tunnel. But of course there was no reply, so he turned around and continued down the tunnel. It was now only him, the sole survivor on this journey.

The still silence was almost deafening. Sometimes the quietest things can be the loudest things, and in this situation it was. The silence was almost to the point of pain, or was it complete and utter bliss. Complete silence, isn't that what he wanted?

Paul was used to being alone, but not like this. It didn't feel right; the air was heavy and dense, the air was freezing cold, and the darkness felt like it was creeping in closer every second.

'Why am I doing this?' Paul thought.

'I must be out of my mind. I have been trudging through this place for hours, and for what? A girl who doesn't even like me. Why would I do so much for her? Why am I going to such great lengths to find her? What is so special about her?' Paul just couldn't keep these thoughts from flowing through his head. Question after question just stormed his mind as he roughly treaded down the tunnel. He was at the point where he wasn't even watching where he was going. The fact that he was mentally caught up in something cause him to not realize that terrain had become quite rocky. Paul soon tripped over a small rock, and in the process dropped the flashlight. He swore under his breath as the light went out, leaving him in complete darkness. Paul got down on his knees and shuffled his hands along the floor in search of the flashlight. After searching for a little while, he finally found it. He tried flicking the switch, but it didn't come on. He started slapping the sides in hopes of fixing it.

"Come on, come on." He said as he began to become very frustrated.

Paul tried everything, but no luck. Paul yelled out in frustration, and then leaned up against the wall. He couldn't see anything, the tunnel was pitch black. He didn't know what was front, or what was back. He slide down the wall and sat on the floor. The air was so cold that he was practically shivering, and he was exhausted beyond belief. He hadn't eaten or drunken anything for hours, and his legs hurt from all the walking.

Paul sighed. 'I guess this is the end.' He thought to himself.

Giving up wasn't something Paul did often, but what more could he do at this point. The darkness around him began to creep closer and closer, the more he gave up. Paul slowly started to close his eyes as he accepted fate.

'I'll just get taken like all the others.' He thought as the darkness was so close that he couldn't even breathe anymore. Despair is a feeling that is hard to over come, but hope is something that is far more powerful then despair. And maybe hope was the reason that he kept going forward. Hope that by continuing on he would eventually find Dawn. A hope that allowed him to move on even when it seemed like it was a meaningless journey. A hope that kept him going then, and a hope that will keep him going now.

"Hellooooo! Can anybody here me?!" A voice yelled as it echoed down the tunnel. Paul immediately shot his eyes open and turned his head in the direction he heard the voice.

"Hello?" He replied.

For a second he didn't here a reply and assumed that he was hearing things. But to his surprise, the voice answered.

"Paul?" The voice asked back. Paul raised an eyebrow, unsure how to respond to that.

"Ummm, yeah?" He said.

"It's me Dawn! Can you please come and help me?" The voice yelled.

As soon as Dawn said that, Paul's heart skipped a beat. But then he looked around and realized the situation he was in.

"Yeah, I'd love to help you." Paul sarcastically replied as he rolled his eyes. This is Paul we are still talking about. He ran his hands through his hair.

"But I can't, I'm stuck. And there's nothing I can do about it." He harshly said. "I have been walking through this pokemon center for hours, and look where it got me? Lost in some god forsaken tunnel. I can't see anything, I can barely feel anything anymore, and this ominous darkness is looming over my like a pack of vultures flying over a dead body. There's nothing I can do see? I'm hungry, I'm tired and I'm done." Paul took a deep breath and stared at the ground. "You're just going to have to find someone else to save you, because I'm no hero." He said.

"Paul please listen to me. I know things seem really tough right now, and you may feel like it's impossible to do anything, but if anyone can do it, then it's you. You are so much stronger then this, and maybe it's because of the circumstances that you may be acting out of character, but I know the real you is still in there. You can beat this because you are a strong person, even if no one else thinks so. I have known so many people who say that they can do anything they put their minds to, but you're the only person I know who actually does it. If you made it this far, then you can make it farther. I don't care if you aren't a hero, you can be my hero." The more Dawn talked, the further away the darkness seemed to get. "If you can't see, then just follow the sound of my voice. If you're hungry, then I promise to buy you lunch when you we get out of here. I may need help being saved, but so do you." Dawn's words echoed through the tunnel. Paul stood up, and slowly started walking in the direction of her voice.

"I know you probably hate me, but please don't give up on me." Dawn said. Paul could hear the distress in her voice and it sounded like she was beginning to cry. "We may have our differences, and I know we may fight a lot, but I really do care about you, even If you don't know it. I don't want things to end like this." Dawn cried.

"I really just wish that you would-" Her voice was suddenly cut off. And maybe it was because her echoing voice came to an abrupt stop, but Paul just sprinted down the tunnel. His heart was beating so fast, and he didn't know why but at the moment he didn't really care. Sweat was just dripping down his forehead as the wind from running caused his hair to blow back. He was running so fast that it felt like his heart was going to explode. Impairments like the inability to see weren't going to hold him back. Maybe it was the concept that Dawn's existence was so within reach that kept him from stopping. Up ahead of him he could see a light, a bright light in the distance, a goal.

'if I were to bet on anything, I'd bet that that troublesome girl is in that room up ahead.' Paul thought to himself. Paul smirked as that arrogant confidence of his slowly seeped back into him.

'That loser Ash would have never made it this far.' He triumphantly thought. With a final few steps, Paul ran straight into the light. It was so bright that it was almost blinding. It was like being in a dark room for hours, and then turning on the lights and it burns. Light like that.

* * *

**Has that ever happened you? Being in a dark room and someone turns on the lights. It burns!**

**So yeah, two chapters left after this. Sad, I know. But it needs to end eventually. **

**I will try to have the next chapter up some time next week. So see you then!**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	9. Save Me

**Yay! Everything goes down in this chapter! I love Paul, he's such a random kind of guy and that's what I love about him!**

**I personally really love this chapter, but it's all about opinion, so you'll just have to read it for yourself and decide.**

**So read away! But don't hurt yourself.**

**And be...umm...have...umm...INDULGE in thy chapter!**

* * *

Paul ran head first into the room. He was almost disappointed at how bright the room actually wasn't.

'It looked so much brighter from the hallway. What happened?' He thought to himself.

He looked around the room; well…it was more like a cave. Rock walls, dirt floor, dry air, high ceiling, yup it was a cave alright. But the normal appearance didn't fool Paul. Something felt odd to him. The air felt so dry and dense that it was almost chocking him. He looked forward and saw Dawn sitting on the ground in the middle of the cave. Her hands were covering her face, and Paul could hear her crying.

"Dawn!" He yelled as his voice echoed through the cave.

But strangely she didn't answer. She didn't move, she didn't flinch, and it was almost as if she didn't hear him. He looked around to make sure there were no posing dangers, and then started walking towards her. The closer he got to her, the heavier the air became, but that wasn't going to stop him. Suddenly Tiffany appeared in front of him.

"Hey Paul." Tiffany said as if her current presence wasn't odd. Her skin was pale and her entire eye area was dark and shadowed.

"Tiffany, what are you doing here?" Paul hesitantly asked.

"I'm here for you silly." She replied.

Paul raised an eyebrow at her. "Weren't you going back to the lobby?" He asked.

"Well what's the point in going if you aren't with me?" She said in an innocent tone.

Paul narrowed his eyes at her. "Then how did you even get in here? There's only one entrance into this cave, and last time I checked you weren't in it." Paul harshly said. Tiffany flipped her hair, and a huge smile spread across her face.

"Does it matter how I got here, the point is that I'm here to come save you." Tiffany said.

Tiffany's odd demeanor was enough to frighten anyone, but that demeanor was what made Paul realize the truth.

"It's you, it was you all along wasn't it. You're that missing Pokémon aren't you? You are the one who has been terrorizing us since the beginning. " He yelled.

Tiffany snickered under her breath. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not a Pokémon. " Her obvious lying was beyond noticeable, and Paul wasn't going to fall for it.

"What do you want from me?" He bluntly asked. Tiffany slowly started walking towards Paul.

"What do I want? All I want is to save you from this nightmare of a place Paul, and take you to…paradise. The place where only you matter." Tiffany said as she walked close up to Paul and softly grabbed his arm with one of her hands. When she grabbed his arm, Paul could feel a strange warmth creep up into it. The warmth felt good, really good. The only thing Paul could concentrate on was Tiffany. The whole area around him seemed to disappear and all he could see was Tiffany and the ground beneath him. Her hair was glowing and next to that, it was also floating. It flowed through the air in such a soft way that Paul didn't even realize what was happening to him.

"A place where anything you want comes true, because everyone follows you. You can be the Pokémon master that you always wanted, you can win any battle that you are a part of, and you'll win every league that you enter. It'll be pure heaven for you." Tiffany's smooth words were like honey to Paul's ears. It was almost like he was in a trance.

"Just come with me Paul and you'll never have to worry about the problems of everyday life ever again." Tiffany softly said. Paul couldn't even think straight by this point.

"But I have to…save…Dawn." Paul faintly said. Tiffany put her hands on his face and looked him clear in the eyes.

"No…no you don't Paul. She's fine, she's fine. Forget about her, ok? Forgetttttt…" Tiffany's words echoed through Paul's head over and over again.

"Forget" He repeated.

"Yes, forget. And come with me." Tiffany said.

The cave was quiet and still, with only the sound of Tiffany's glowing. (I don't know if glowing makes a sound, but it does here, so use your imagination.) Tiffany's smile grew so big that it probably wasn't humanly possible.

'I have him right where I want him.' She thought to herself.

Paul opened his mouth to speak and took in a deep breath.

"No." He harshly said.

Tiffany was beyond taken back by his reply. Her breath hitched and it made a weird sound, almost sounded like an animal chocking. The glowing air around her turned black and Paul could see the surrounding area again.

"N…no…What do you mean no!" Tiffany yelled as more smoke formed around her.

The black smoke shot in every different direction due to her anger and her bright red eyes were practically breathing with rage. Paul cut his losses, and jumped around Tiffany. He made a bee-line towards Dawn. The cave began to shake rapidly, and some rocks started falling from the ceiling. Paul easily dodged them and slid over to where Dawn was. Paul looked behind him and could only see black smoke spinning wildly around the room, but he couldn't see Tiffany anywhere.

"Dawn, we need to get out of here like…right now!" He yelled as he tried to catch his breath.

Dawn sniffled a little and wiped some of the tears away from her eyes.

"Paul, we can't." She said as she coughed a bit.

"Yeah we can, the exit is right there. If we run fast enough, we can get around-"

"No Paul, I mean we really can't get out of here. None of this is real." Dawn said.

Paul's eye twitched a little from frustration but he had no time to act on that anger. He grabbed Dawn's arm and pulled her up off of the floor.

"You are just delusional, you probably need medical help. But before that we need to get out of here." Paul practically yelled.

"Paul, I'm serious. You're just dreaming!" Dawn yelled.

"What are you talking about?!" Paul yelled back.

Dawn roughly grabbed the collar of Paul's jacket and started shaking him back and forth.

"This isn't happening, this isn't real! You need to wake up Paul, ok?! Just wake up!" She yelled.

Paul looked Dawn straight in the eyes. 'Is she serious?' He thought to himself. 'Like…really serious.' Dawn smiled to herself as she realized that Paul was beginning to get what she was saying. Suddenly Tiffany grabbed Dawn and threw her halfway across the room. Paul didn't even have time to react because Tiffany was now face to face with him.

"Don't listen to her Paul, she's crazy. She doesn't know what she's talking about!" Tiffany yelled.

"You can't trust her Paul, she's totally lost it. But you can trust me." Tiffany said as she pointed at herself.

That's when Dawn runs up behind Tiffany, jumps onto her back, and wraps her arms around her neck. Paul takes a step back as the girls continue to fight. Tiffany starts spinning Dawn around in the air like a helicopter in hopes of shaking her off, but no luck. She then slams her back against the wall which causes Dawn to fall off. Tiffany throws a heavy punch at Dawn, but she dodges and Tiffany ends up punching the wall which causes the entire cave to shake. Everyone is now trying to keep themselves from falling over as a huge crack in the ground spreads across the floor. The crack stretches right under Paul's feet, and unable to jump out of the way in time, he falls straight into the abyss. But luckily Dawn grabbed his arm in time and kept him from plummeting to his death. They both looked around at the surrounding area. They are in a cave, under the Pokémon center, hanging from a cliff, with a…whatever Tiffany is, running around.

"Crazy situation right?" Dawn jokingly said.

Paul rolled his eyes and sighed. "Pull me up, will ya." Paul said.

Dawn started pulling him up and got him up enough where he could grab the edge of the cliff. Things seemed to be going well until Tiffany made a comeback! She tackles Dawn away from Paul, and the two once again began fighting. Paul was now left to pull himself up, but his exhaustion was slowing him down. Tiffany and Dawn both had a strong drip on each other's hair. Dawn slapped Tiffany like 5 times across the face. Front hand, back hand, front hand, back hand. Tiffany let go of Dawn's hair and rolled off of her. Dawn stood up in triumph but was then taken down by Tiffany who punched her in the nose. Dawn fell onto her back and grabbed her nose. Then she notice Tiffany running her way. She then used her feet to flip Tiffany over her. Tiffany slammed onto the ground but quickly recovered. Both girls picked themselves up off of the floor as they tried to catch their breath.

"I have had about enough of this!" Tiffany yelled.

The two girls ran at each and started fighting again. Though the fight had seemed pretty equal, Tiffany still proved to be stronger. She grabbed Dawn's hair and threw her to the ground. Then she picked her up and threw her at the wall, which knocked Dawn out. As Dawn's body hit the ground, Tiffany heavily exhaled air in excitement over her victory and a huge smiled played across her face.

Paul had finally pulled himself up, and witnesses the end of the fight.

"Dawn!" He yelled as he ran over to her, pushing Tiffany out of the way in the process. He knelt down next to Dawn and noticed a small bruise on her forehead. 'Nothing to serious.' He thought to himself.

Tiffany walked up to him and smiled. "So you'll come with me now Paul, right?" She said in an almost desperate tone.

Paul looked at her as if she was crazy. "No I'm not going with you, are you crazy!" Paul yelled at her.

Tiffany was beyond taken back by his statement.

"What do you mean you won't go with me?! I…I won!" Tiffany screamed out of plain fury.

"I don't care if you 'won' I need to get Dawn to a doctor to make sure she's ok." Paul replied.

Tiffany completely flew off the handle. Tiffany's body turned into black smoke, and she started growing bigger and bigger with every word.

"Dawn this, Dawn that, why is it that she is so important to you. I have been able to get rid of everyone else but her. Every time I push her out, she just comes back. What is so special about her?!" Tiffany was out of control, she was so big that she had to bend over to prevent herself from hitting the ceiling. The smoke covered everything that wasn't Paul or Dawn. Paul wasn't the lovey dovey type of guy, so when it came to talking about his feelings, he more over tried to avoid it by changing the subject.

"Where is everyone Tiffany? Where did you put them?!" Tiffany noticed Paul's aversion to her question, and she was going to use that to her advantage.

"You don't really care where the others are, do you Paul? You just want to know where Katie is, don't you?" Tiffany sneakily asked.

Paul was sick of Tiffany's games and just looked her straight in the eyes, not even bothering to answer her question.

"Hahahahaha! You want to know where she is Paul? The girl that was so nice and sweet and kind, the girl that couldn't hate you for anything. Well the answer to where she is, is so simple because that 'little girl' is right next to you." Tiffany yelled in a devious tone.

Paul's eyes widened as he turned his head and looked at Dawn. "The girl you were looking for was with you the entire time, and you didn't even know it. And you know why you never realized it? It's because you assumed that her ability to overlook your crude personality and be so generous towards you was out of pure child naivety. But in actuality it was from the mind of a girl who already loves you!" Tiffany hysterically laughed at the cruel irony.

Paul didn't even know what to say, he was beyond stunned. Tiffany stopped laughing and tried to catch her breath.

"I'll just take care of her for you." Tiffany said as she started reaching her 'hand' over to grab Dawn. But before she could, Paul jumped in front of her. Tiffany frowned at his action and growled.

"Why are you still protecting her? It's not like you care about her." Tiffany sneered.

Paul crossed his arms and looked Tiffany dead in the eyes.

"Hn, maybe I do." He plainly stated.

Tiffany stopped everything she was doing and stared at Paul. "Wh…wha…what?" She stuttered.

"You heard me, maybe I do care about her. Maybe I even like her." With every word, Paul took a step closer to Tiffany and with every word of truth Tiffany grew smaller.

"And while we are letting things out, maybe I really like her, a lot. You know what? Why hold back, maybe I even love her. Cause god only know that I don't hate her. And according to you it's one or the other. We have already established that I don't hate her, so who's to say that I don't love her. Maybe that's why I really came on this journey. Not because Ash told me to, but because I wanted to make sure she was alright. She may not be the prettiest girl in the world, but she's pretty to me. She may be annoying, but that's just how she is. She may not be the smartest person in the world, and she may get herself lost every now and then, but I guess that's why I'm here." Paul said without a hint of emotion on his face, because this IS Paul we are talking about. The closer Paul came to Tiffany, the further back she walked. This continued until they reached the end of the cliff. Tiffany took one step to close and fell, but she grabbed onto the ledge and was now hanging.

"I offer you paradise, yet you chose her over me." Tiffany spat.

Paul looked down at Tiffany, and shook his head in pity.

"She is my paradise." He said as he kicks Tiffany off of the cliff.

The sound of Tiffany's scream echoed through the cave as Paul sighed in relief. He started walking towards Dawn, but suddenly the ground began shaking. Black smoke shoots out of the abyss, and Tiffany was literally screaming. Dawn finally comes to and sees a giant smoke monster…just…there.

"Huh? What?" She says out of confusion. She looks around and rubs the bump on her forehead. 'What is going on' she thinks to herself.

Paul looks up at Tiffany. 'Are you kidding me?!' He yells to himself.

He turns around and notices that Dawn's awake. "Dawn, you need to get out of here, now!" Paul yells. "I'll try to distract Tiffany!"

Dawn picks herself up off of the floor. "Paul no! You just need to wake up!" Dawn yells.

"I don't have time for your delusional rant! Get out of here!" Paul yells back.

"Please Paul, wake up!" Dawn screams at the top of her lungs.

Paul stopped and started to realize that maybe Dawn was telling the truth.

"Tiffany's not real Paul, she's not real!" Dawn yelled.

Paul jumped out of the way as Tiffany threw a fist at him.

"She sure seems real!" Paul said.

Tiffany was becoming so enraged by this whole situation. She swung her arm at Dawn, but she easily dodged it.

"Tiffany, you need to stop this!" Paul yelled.

Tiffany begrudgingly turned her attention towards Paul. "Please, call me by my technical name, coma!" She hissed.

Paul dodged another one of her attacks.

'Coma?' He thought.

Paul looked up at Tiffany; she was a giant smoke monster that was constantly challenging his true feelings on people and things. That's when it all made sense.

"I'm sleeping?" He said out loud.

The statement was enough to stop Tiffany from attacking, and enough to make some of Tiffany's smoke disperse, and that caught Paul's eye.

He smirked, "So Tiffany, you're just a coma trying to keep me asleep forever." Paul said.

The more he realized the truth, the more Tiffany disappeared.

"This isn't real, none of it is. I'm just dreaming or I'm having a nightmare. Either way, it's all just a figment of my imagination. Which is sad considering you did a terrible job at everything. Even this troublesome girl got around all your little tricks. How pathetic." And with those final few words, nearly all of Tiffany's smoke was gone.

As a last ditch attempt to keep Paul here, Tiffany threw herself into the ceiling causing some rocks to come loose. Tiffany finally disappeared, but the ground was still shaking. Paul looked over at Dawn who was smiling. He sighed in relief, but then realized that a large rock had come loose from the ceiling and was now hurtling towards Dawn.

"Look out!" He yelled.

Paul sprinted towards Dawn, pushed her out of the way, but didn't have enough time to save himself. Paul looks up and sees the rock coming in fast. All of a sudden, everything goes black. He hears a high pitch scream, then hears glass shatter, then hears Dawn yell 'Paul please wake up!' The noise practically shocks his system.

His head pulses, his heart skips a beat, he sucks in a giant gust of air, then shoots his eyes open and he's in a hospital.

* * *

**BLAM BITCHES! Bet you didn't see that coming! Well maybe you did, but that's not the point.**

**Whether you like it or not, that was the plan from the beginning. That was the first idea I started with, I just built around that.**

**So the next chapter, is mainly aftermath and explaining, it's actually pretty funny.**

**So I'll update next week, maybe see you then!**

**-Love VideoGameChic**


	10. What?

**The final chapter! **

**This is the moment of truth! The moment you have been waiting for!**

**And yes I know I'm updating later then I usually do, but I was really busy these last couple days, so calm yourselves.**

**I have been waiting to write this chapter since the beginning, the end is my favorite part! And it's really long!**

**Now you'll finally understand everything.**

**So whoever is left! **

**Enjoy yourselves to death!**

* * *

'What?'Paul thought to himself as his eyes adjusted to the bright room around him.

He was still a little confused on what was going on, and not sure about the recent events. He noticed that to his right, Dawn sitting in a chair, with her head laying on the bed and her hand interlocked with his, which by the way was still burnt! Her eyes were closed and she kept repeating the words 'please wake up' to herself. Paul sat up and started rubbing his head.

'So that was all a dream' He thought.

As soon as he sat up, Dawn realized that he had waken up, and was beyond being in shock.

"P…Pu…Pual?" Dawn barely stuttered out.

He turned around and looked at her. Dawn couldn't believe it, she sat there starring at him, but it didn't comprehend. Her eyes widened, her mouth was gapping open, and her hair was practically sticking up. Paul just sat there unsure how to respond considering the fact that he didn't really know what was going on. He was about to say something when all of a sudden Dawn sucked in a giant gust of air, pulled her hands away from him and pushed them up against her chest.

"DOCTOR!" Dawn screamed at the top of her lungs.

The sudden screech of her voice startled Paul, and you could also guess the doctor too considering he came flying through the door as if his life depended on it.

"What happened, What happened?! Did somebody die?!" The doctor yelled in a panic.

"He's awake doctor He's awake! He woke up!" Dawn yelled as she through her arms around Paul's neck and pushed her cheek up against his in a hug. The doctor kind of sensed Paul's confusion and discomfort, so he decided that he would save him for the moment.

"Hey Dawn…" The doctor said.

Dawn turned her attention back to the doctor. "What is it David?" Dawn said in contempt, visibly angered by him interrupting her moment of excitement.

"How about you go get Reggie and let him know that Paul has woken up. I think he's at the snack machine in the front."

Dawn gasped in realization, "OH You're right! I've got to go tell Reggie!" She yelled as she sprinted out the door and down the hallway. The doctor shook his head and chuckled at Dawn's actions. He walked over and started to write some stuff on his clipboard.

"Good kid, you're lucky to have a friend like her. She's been here since you were admitted to the hospital. She's never left your side" He said and he began taking Paul's blood pressure.

'She's been here the whole time? But…why?" Paul thought to himself.

"Oh, by the way I'm Doctor Ryan." The doctor said as he shook Paul's hand.

'Ryan? That sounds familiar.' Paul thought to himself.

Paul turned his head, and looked out of the window. 'Yeah, that may have all been a dream, but…were my feelings fake too? I mean, in my dream…I seriously cared about her. And even more then that, I loved her. Is…that how I really feel? Do I…' He didn't even want to finish that question because in a way, he was afraid to know the answer. 'My…feelings for her pushed me out of my coma…or maybe it's just because her voice is really annoying.' He thought, but though he tried, he didn't really believe that. But being who he is, he doesn't like to think or show is emotions.

By the time that Dawn and Reggie came bursting back through the door, Paul was already out of bed stretching his muscles.

"Oh my god Paul you're really awake! I thought Dawn was lying again." Reggie yelled.

Dawn put her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks. "I never lied about that." She said. But as soon as she said that, she turned her head to the side and snickered to herself knowing that her previous statement was a complete lie.

"Paul I can't believe you're awake. You were asleep for so long that we thought that you would never wake up!" Reggie continued to rant on, but by now Paul had completely toned him out. His only focus right now was on Dawn.

'There's no way that I care about HER. She's, she's she's…HER! All kind and nice and…always smiling and…Besides she probably still hates me. Does she still hate me? But she can't, the doctor said that she's been with me the whole time. If she did hate me then she wouldn't have stayed. But if she doesn't hate me then is it possible that she…' Paul was so concentrated with his thoughts that he didn't realize that he was downright staring at her. Dawn being who she is didn't noticed and was more occupied with Reggie, who was making a scene. The doctor saw how conflicted Paul seemed towards Dawn and decided to once again save him.

"Hey Reggie, I need help getting something from the other room. Can you help me?" Doctor Ryan said.

Reggie instantly stopped his scene and looked at he doctor. "What do you need help with?" Reggie replied. Doctor Ryan didn't' even bother wasting time on thinking of a lie, so he just started pushing Reggie out.

"Something ok? Just…just…just get out." He said as Reggie and him finished leaving the room, leaving Paul and Dawn alone.

"How are you feeling Paul?" Dawn asked.

"Fine." He simply replied. That's when Dawn began to become nervous.

'I forgot he's like this' She thought to herself.

Paul, who had been lost in his thoughts, had one question that he was just itching to know the answer to.

"Why are you here?" He suddenly asked. The question threw Dawn off a bit; she started rubbing her arm and avoided Paul's line of view.

"Listen I know we don't talk a lot, and it must seem weird to see me here. But I wanted to make sure you were ok, I mean especially after the incident. I was really worried about you and…just wanted to make sure you were alright." Dawn sheepishly answered. Then Paul remembered the 'incident' and started scratching the back of his head.

"Oh yeah, about that. I…apologize for the way I acted. There was no reason for me to be that mean to you, even if I was in a bad mood. I guess what I'm trying to say is…I'd like to thank you for pushing me out of the way of that boulder." Paul bluntly stated with maybe 10% emotion on his face. Dawn tilted her head to the side in confusion, and blinked a couple times.

"Paul what are you talking about? YOU were the one that saved ME." Dawn said. "Don't you remember?"

* * *

**_Swivel swivel spin spin_**

**_Flashback_**

* * *

Day 1:

"Team Rocket is blasting off again!"

And with a final twinkle in the sky, they were gone. But the explosion from the robot made the entire area around them shake. With all the commotion going on Dawn didn't notice the giant pile of rocks falling her way. Not one big boulder, but a bunch of medium sized rocks. Paul looks over and noticed the impending danger that is headed towards Dawn. Ash and Brock were to occupied trying to dodge the rocks that were also falling towards them, so they were in no position to help anyone. The thought of Dawn being crushed under a pile of rocks made Paul's heart rate skyrocket. Without even thinking, he started sprinting towards Dawn. An inevitably fate was going to plague one of them, and he would rather it be him then her.

"Look out!" He yelled.

"What?" Dawn said.

She had absolutely no time to figure out what was going on because as soon as she turned around, Paul shoves her. And I don't mean a little push out of the way, I mean a full on heavy shove. Enough to cause her entire body to go flying through the air and then proceed to roughly roll across the ground. Dawn groaned at the hard landing, sat up and rubbed the bruise on the back of her head. But the pain from her landing quickly went away when she realized what had just happened. Where she used to stand was now a pile of rocks and Paul was nowhere to be found. It doesn't take a scientist to put two and two together, so when Dawn realized what happened, her eyes widened and she gasped.

By now the ground had stopped shaking, and Ash and Brock reclaimed their composure. Their obliviousness to the situation behind them was torn straight in half, as Dawn screamed a high pitch scream that could probably kill a person.

"Help! Somebody help me!" She screeched.

Ash and Brock turned around and saw Dawn sitting there on the ground crying, and a pile of rocks. They ran over and started pulling rocks up, trying to get Paul out of there. They finally were able to move enough rocks out of the way, so they pulled Paul out of the wreckage. He was unconscious, his head was bleeding and he was covered in bruises. As soon as she saw the blood, Dawn turned her head and covered her eyes. She tried to control her hysterical crying, but the pain, grief, and guilt she was feeling were too much for her to handle.

An ambulance soon came and it drove them all to the hospital. When they got there, about 4 different doctors surrounded Paul's stretcher as they frantically pushed it down the emergency room hallway. Though most people were stopped at the entrance, Dawn was determined to stay with him until she knew he was ok. She ran right next to the stretcher and panic flowed through her as she looked upon his battered unconscious body. She ran so fast that she accidentally bumped a table and knocked over a vase, resulting in the sound of shattering glass to echo down the hallway.

'Why would he do that?! Why would he save me?!' Questions like these were just racing through Dawn's head. Her head was pounding, her vision was blurry, she was seeing black and white tunnel vision.

'Please be ok! Please be ok!' She yelled in her mind as tears ran down her cheeks.

'This can't be happening! This can't be happening!' She screamed to herself.

Beepers beeping, patients screaming, doctors running, cutting, pushing, yelling. "Oxygen! Oxygen!" It was complete chaos, but somehow it seemed like through all this chaos was a weird form of organization. The doctors ran into the emergency room, but Dawn was told that she had to wait outside. She walked back to the waiting room where everyone else waited. There was Ash, and Brock, and some other people, who had heard what had happened and went to the hospital to make sure everything was ok. Dawn slowly walk over to the group. She had dried tears on her face, and she wasn't really in the mood for talking too much.

"Is he going to be ok?" Ash asked in concern.

"I…I don't know. He just went into the emergency room but they won't let me in." Dawn softly replied.

Dawn slowly turned her head to Brock, and ran her hand through hair. "Does Reggie know yet?" She asked.

"Yeah, I called him on the videophone. He's headed over here now." Brock said.

Dawn walked over and sat in one of the chairs. She crossed her arms and sighed to herself. This really wasn't her day.

* * *

It had been hours before a doctor finally came into the waiting room with news.

Dawn was the first to run up to him, "Is he ok?" She frantically asked.

The doctor sighed, and that wasn't always a good sign.

"He's…alive but…He suffered from a very hard blow to the head and I'm afraid that he…" The doctor hesitated for a second, knowing that the people in front of him won't be too happy with the end of his sentence. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed again.

"It seems that he may have slipped into a coma."

* * *

**_Flashback Over_**

* * *

"OK, so maybe you don't remember ALL of that, but that's what happened." Dawn said as she finished her recollection.

"How long was I asleep?" Paul asked.

"About two weeks and a half." She answered.

Paul brushed back the bangs on his forehead. 'That was a lot to take in.' He thought to himself.

Dawn looked down at her feet, avoiding Paul's gaze, and blushed a little. "I…I never got to say thank you for saving me. I was sitting here waiting for you to wake up but it started to seem like that was never going to happen. But now that you're awake…" Dawn was about to finish her sentence when her emotions seemed to overtake her. She grabbed Paul, and wrapped him into a huge hug. "Thank you SO much Paul!" She yelled with great gratitude.

Paul was taken back, but he slightly hugged her back all the more. Dawn finally let go of Paul, took a step back, and smiled her platinum smile that Paul had always found quite enjoyable. Doctor Ryan and Reggie finally came back into the room.

"So Paul, how ya feeling?" Reggie said as he ruffled Paul's hair, much to Paul dismay. Paul pushed Reggie's hand away.

"I'm fine." He hissed.

Reggie laughed at his brother's reaction and smiled. "Yeah I know, don't want you're big brother in your personal space." Reggie chuckled.

"Or anyone else for that matter." Paul harshly added.

Reggie smirked at his brother's statement. "Yeah, well it seems you didn't mind when Dawn was in your personal space." He said.

"That's different, I was asleep, I didn't know she was that close." Paul said as he tried to defend himself.

Reggie laughed again, "Calm down, I'm just kidding. Besides you're lucky you were asleep. At least you didn't have to hear Dawn's constant talking. She talked none stop while you were asleep." Reggie said.

They both turned their attention to Dawn who was slightly offended, but at the same time embarrassed by the unwanted attention. She scratched the side of her cheek in an innocent sheepish manner.

"I thought that if I talked enough, that eventually something I said would get through to you." She reasoned.

Paul pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Yeah something got through, a lot got through." Paul said to himself.

"What?" Dawn questioned.

"Nothing." Paul said as he tried to lead away from the conversation.

Doctor Ryan had been in his own world during this whole conversation, and they had assumed that he was doing doctor stuff. He wrote a few more things on his clipboard, scratched some things out, put some dots on it and then smiled and turned the clipboard around for everyone to see.

"Look everyone, I drew myself!" He yelled.

Giant sweat drops ran down the side of everyone's heads in a comical fashion. Dawn pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head.

"Oh David." She said in shame.

Doctor Ryan pulled the picture over the top of the clipboard, that way he could see the papers underneath it.

"Ok, so Paul it says here that your all checked out and that you're perfectly healthy. So you are welcomed to leave at your earliest convenience. All of your stuff is in that closet against the wall over there." He walked over to Paul and shook his hand again. "It's been great being your doctor. Try not to get into any more comas ok?" And with that, Doctor Ryan walked out of the room.

Dawn walked over to the door and looked down the hallway. Doctor Ryan walked down the hallway in an odd fashion and was constantly looking in a handheld mirror. "Nurse Candy, get me some nachos will you?" He said. Dawn laughed at the notion and walked back into the room.

"So what now?" She asked.

Paul looked around the room and then looked down at himself. "I don't know about you, but I'm changing out of these hospital clothes, and getting something to eat." Paul replied.

* * *

Dawn and Paul walked down the stairs of the main lobby and started walking towards the front door. As usual, Paul had his hands in his pockets and Dawn was smiling to herself.

"So Reggie's going back to Veilstone?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah, he needs to keep caring for the pokemon there." Paul answered.

They walked out the front door and stopped walking to say their goodbyes.

"So…I guess this is goodbye." Dawn said, with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Yeah." Paul replied in his normal emotionless way. The moment was awkward, because even though feelings for each other were obvious, neither one would admit it.

"So…bye." Dawn said as she heart crushingly waved. Paul responded with a small 'bye' and both turned opposite directions and started walking away from each other. The wind was blowing, and both of them felt a sense of unfulfillment. Dawn felt the pain deep in her heart. She was walking away from the boy she had spent the last two weeks worrying about. And even before the incident, she had always liked him in a way that no one else could. Even though he was a jerk, he was her jerk. And even though he had a totally hot appearance, she cared more about his personality. The one he hides beneath his hard exterior. She liked HIM, and now she felt like she was starting from square one, being alone.

Paul felt a lot different then Dawn did, he felt…confused.

'What am I doing? Am I letting her just walk away? I spent all that fake time chasing after her, worrying for her safety, and going through a lot just to find her. Now I have her, and I'm just letting her go. I'm giving everything I worked for up.' Paul stopped walking, 'Is this really what I want? I mean, if most of the things she said in real life transformed into my dream, then that means that she really meant most of the it. Even though I went though a lot to save her, she also went though a lot to save me. She's been stuck here at this hospital worrying about me just like I worried about her. I spent that entire dream trying to save her, but…I already did, before my coma. And she was never gone, or missing, or anything. She was with me the entire time. So what am I doing?' Paul turned around and saw Dawn walking away.

"Hey!' He yelled over to her.

She turned around and waited for what Paul had to say. But even though inner Paul had a huge realization about his major priorities in life, outer Paul is still Mr. cool and arrogant.

"You know you're probably going to get lost out here all by yourself. Especially without that loser Ash and that other guy with you. So you better stay with me until we reach the next city or something, becuase I ALWAYS know where I'm going." Paul said as he smirked.

Dawn's face lite up so bright that she was practically glowing. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to get lost or mugged or anything." Dawn playfully responded.

She ran over to Paul and they both started walking together to the next town.

"So what did you do all that time? I highly doubt you just cried the whole time." Paul asked out of pure curiosity.

Dawn turned her head to the side and smiled. "Oh you have no idea."

* * *

**_Flashback_**

* * *

Day 2:

Ash, Brock and Dawn stood around Paul's hospital bed looking down at his unconscious body.

"Man, I can't believe this happened to Paul." Ash said in surprise.

"I know it's such a freak accident." Brock added.

Dawn raised an eyebrow and looked at Ash and Brock. "No it's not. I was in danger, and he pushed me out of the way, simple as that." Dawn said.

Ash scratched the back of his head in confusion. "Soooo…this is all you're fault?" Ash asked.

Brock and Pikachu face palmed at Ash's ignorant question. Dawn gave Ash a death glare, and allowed his stupidity to be his excuse.

"Shut up." She replied.

* * *

Day 3:

"Do you think he'll wake up anytime soon?" Ash through he question out, but didn't really care who answered.

"I hope so." Was Brock's answer.

"I don't want to think about it." Was Dawn's.

The group sat there, still saddened by the recent events. All of a sudden, they could hear a loud commotion coming from the hallway.

"He's in a what?!" Someone yelled down the hallway.

"Reggie's here." Brock stated.

It didn't take long for Reggie to come running into the room, panic stricken. "Oh my God! What happened to him?!" Reggie yelled to no one in particular. The doctor came running into the room soon after Reggie.

"He got crushed by a pile of rocks." The doctor informed him.

"What?! How did that happen?!" Reggie yelled.

Ash, Brock, and the doctor turned and looked at Dawn. That's when things got awkward. Dawn rubbed the side of her neck and turned her head to the side. "Iiieeeeee…."

* * *

Day 6:

It had been almost a week and people were losing hope. Ash and Brock visited every now and then, but Dawn was really the only one who stayed full time. Reggie was there a lot too, but he has a business to run. When no one was around, Dawn would cry to herself, and would beg Paul to wake up. But it was all in vein, or so it seemed. Dawn usually ended up alone, especially because Ash and Brock were taking care of her Pokemon while she was here, so most of the time it was just her.

Doctor Ryan nonchalantly walked into the room eating nachos. He walked over and looked at Paul's chart, wrote a couple things and then started walking back towards the door.

"Wait, Doctor Ryan, Do…you know how long he'll be in a coma?" Dawn asked out of concern.

He turned around and looked at Dawn. "Well, coma's are very sketchy. You can never tell how long a person will be asleep, he could be asleep for weeks, months, even years. He may not ever wake up! But negative thinking isn't going to get you anywhere and-awww man, I dropped my nachos."

* * *

Later that same night Dawn laid her head down on Paul's bed. She was tired, but she didn't want to go home knowing that Paul was in here mainly due to her. She interlocked her hand into his and smiled.

"I promise never to leave your side until you wake up Paul." She said.

A single tear escaped her eyes and it fell onto his hand, rolling off his skin and onto the bed.

"I promise."

* * *

Day 8:

Reggie had gone out for lunch about an hour ago, and was now headed back towards the hospital. He walked down the hallway and soon found himself at his brother's room. He walked in, looked over at Paul and noticed that Dawn was straightening her hair.

"Dawn, what are you doing?' He asked, not sure if he wanted to hear her answer. Dawn pulled the straightener away from her face.

"Straightening my hair silly." She replied as if nothing was wrong with her actions.

"But…but why?" Reggie asked.

Dawn put one of her hands on her hip and puffed out her cheeks. "Just because he's unconscious, doesn't mean that I don't have to look fabulous." Dawn pride fully stated.

Reggie raised an eyebrow at her as she tried to stare him down. Dawn stared as hard as she could until tssssss.

"Oh my God, I just burnt Paul's hand!" Dawn yelled as she pulled the straightener away from him.

Reggie's eye twitched a little and Dawn giggled to herself, "I'll just kiss it and make it all better." Dawn decided. She grabbed Paul's hand and kissed the burn mark.

"All better!" She yelled in triumph, and then she broke out laughing.

Reggie sighed. 'This is the girl watching over my brothers body, just great.' He sarcastically thought to himself.

* * *

Day 10:

It was late at night, and the hospital had settled down. Reggie had a friend watching over the pokemon at his house while he was away, but he frequently called to make sure everything was ok. And when he wasn't with Paul, he was helping out at the pokemon center. He had been at the pokemon center all day and decided to visit his brother before he went to sleep for the night. He also wanted to check up Dawn because he had heard that she hadn't slept in days.

'Not sleeping is really bad for your health, it can drive you crazy.' Reggie thought to himself.

He peacefully walked down the long corridor until he reached Paul's room and saw the scene that was taking place. At first the only thing he could see was a crowd of people surrounding Paul's bed. He thought something was wrong so he pushed his way through the crowd in a panic and realized that Dawn had pretty much started a gambling ring around Paul. She and two other girls were playing poker and they were playing it on Paul's chest! They had the cards and the chips and everything! People were trading money and candy and I think someone traded their shoes.

"Dawn what is going on?!" Reggie yelled.

"Oh hey Reggie, wanna join?" Dawn innocently asked.

"No! Who are these people?!" Reggie yelled out of complete confusion and shock.

"Oh, this is Emily, and that's Claire. They are friends of the patient in the room next to us." Dawn nonchalantly answered.

"Yeah, our friend Stacy got attacked by an Ursaring." Claire said.

"So sad, so sad" The two girls said to each other.

The group all turned their attention back to the game. "I'm all in" Dawn said as she pushes all of her chips onto the center of Paul's stomach. Emily and Claire did the same as the crowd became more anxious for the outcome of the game.

"Alright girls, show your cards." Dawn said.

Emily smiled and threw her cards down. "Straight! Try and beat that!" Emily yelled in triumph.

Claire threw her cards down. "HA! I've got a full house!" Claire yelled. T

he two girls turned their attention to Dawn who sat there smiling. Suddenly she slammed her cards down onto Paul and laughed.

"ROYAL FLUSH!" She yelled.

The crowd went wild, people screaming, money being thrown here and there. It was crazy! Dawn stood up and threw her hands in the air in victory. Someone turned on a boom box and everyone just started dancing wildly. Dawn was just beyond out of control, she had the crowd going crazy.

"Maybe if we yell wake up loud enough, Paul will hear us!" Dawn yelled at the over excited crowd.

Everyone just starts yelling wake up along with the background music. People were dancing here and there, jumping up and down and all around. Food was being passed around and people were drinking shots of sugar. Reggie looked over and noticed that some of the doctors and nurses had joined this…party. Someone through glow sticks in the air and people started scrambling to grab some. This was absolute chaos. You'd be surprised that this didn't wake Paul up. Reggie stood in the doorway shaking his head.

'That girl really needs to get some sleep' Reggie thought.

He turned around and walked away from the room. 'I'll visit Paul tomorrow.'

* * *

Day 11:

Dawn slouched in her chair and laid her head on the bed groaning.

"Dawn, I can't believe you had a party last night and didn't invite us!" Ash yelled.

Dawn groaned again and rubbed the side of her head. "Ash…try not to talk to loud, I still have a headache." She said.

Ash crossed his arms and pouted. "I like to party too." He said to himself.

Dawn leaned over and started to braid Paul's hair. "Dawn, what are you doing?" Brock asked.

"Braiding his hair." She replied.

"Why?" Ash said.

"Because I'm bored and he has long beautiful hair." She responded.

She put a couple braids in Paul's hair and then marveled at her accomplishment. But about a minute after creating those braids, Paul turned his head to the side, which ultimately destroyed the braids. Dawn gasped in devastation and watched as her creation was completely destroyed.

"My braids!"

* * *

Day 15:

Dawn sat in her usual chair, eating barbeque ribs, and talking to Paul.

"Paul please listen to me. I know things seem really tough right now, and you may feel like it's impossible to do anything, but if anyone can do it, then it's you. You are so much stronger then this, and maybe it's because of the circumstances that you may be feeling out of character, but I know the real you is still in there. You can beat this because you are a strong person, even if no one else thinks so. I have known so many people who say that they can do anything they put their minds to, but you're the only person I know who actually does it. I don't care if you aren't a hero, you can be my hero. Please just…follow my voice" Dawn said as she talked on and on.

"I mean, you're the one who says that you can do anything, you're Mr. perfect and cool. No one can beat you." By now, Dawn was beginning to make herself angry.

"Who can beat you, nobody because you're Paul." She sarcastically commented on.

"I'm Paul, everyone but me is a loser because I'm perfect and better and you should all wish to be me because I'm so GREAT!" Dawn stood up and pulled her fist back ready to punch, and then she realized what she was doing and where she was. She laughed and pushed back the hair on her forehead.

"I'm arguing with an unconscious body, I'm seriously losing it." She said to herself. She sat back in the chair and laughed to herself.

"I hope Paul didn't hear that, well I mean the second part. The first part was pretty on target, I actually feel like that. It's just that sometimes he can be very mean and arrogant. You know what I mean?" She looked up and realized that she was talking to herself again.

"Aw man."

* * *

Day 18:

Dawn sat there punching the air.

"If that coma was a real person, I would, I would…punch it clear in the face. Yeah, punch it in the face, and then kick it or something, I would totally take it down." She said to herself.

Doctor Ryan walked into the room and laughed at Dawn. " Coma's aren't real Dawn, you can't hit them." He jokingly said.

"Yeah well it's real to him David." Dawn said back while she crossed her arms.

"Stop calling me that, my name is Doctor Ryan!" He whined.

Dawn raised an eyebrow at his childish response. "How are you a doctor?" She asked out of curiosity.

"That's not important!" He yelled and stormed out of the room like a little kid. Dawn decided that it would be best if she didn't think about how he made it out of medical school. She just shook her head and sighed, then sat back in her seat and started talking to Paul again.

* * *

**Flashback Over**

* * *

"And later that day you woke up. So we should probably go find Ash cause he has all of my Pokemon. Thinking about my Pokemon, I have to get piplup a new outfit to wear because…" Dawn became so side tracked that it got to the point where it annoyed Paul tremendously. She talked and talked and talked until Paul had had stopped walking, leaned over and kissed Dawn on the cheek. She immediately stopped talking and her face turned so bright red that you could mistake her for a cherry. Paul pulled away and Dawn put her hand on the spot he kissed.

He opened his mouth to say something, took a deep breath and…"You talk to much. And I'm not just saying that because it's a line from a movie. It's because you do. Do you hear yourself? Even in my coma, the only thing that I could hear was you talking on and on and on. Seriously, do you ever shut up? You're so annoying." He harshly said.

That blew Dawn's mind. 'WHAT?!' She screamed in her mind. 'He kisses me and then criticizes me! What is his problem?! I don't get this guy!' She yelled in her head.

Even though Dawn was freaking out in her mind, Paul just stood there staring at her as if he didn't say anything wrong. He lifted his hand up and stroked her cheek, which caused her to calm down.

"But I guess that's what I like about you." Paul said as he wrapped his finger around her chin and pulled her in closer. A smirk made its way across his face as he kissed Dawn, but this time on her lips. The sweet smell of her perfume filing his nose and he tasted the smooth cherry Chap Stick that laid on Dawn's soft lips. Anything that Dawn was thinking about faded away as she melted under Paul's touch. She had been waiting for this moment since day 1, and finally her dream was coming true. They slowly broke apart, and looked at each other. Dawn's face was redder then before and a slight blush tinted Paul's face.

"Tell that loser Ash about this, and you're dead." Paul said.

Dawn smiled and giggled a little. "You're secret is safe with me." she playfully responded.

They turned around and started heading off into the sunset together. Paul had his hands in his pockets as usual and Dawn was smiling and laughing to herself like usual. And Paul realized that he didn't mind all that much.

The sun was shining bright and the wind was blowing at the perfect speed. It was the perfect day to be outside traveling with someone you care about. It wasn't a normal day for Dawn, and you know what? She was loving every minute of it. 'Even if Paul is an arrogant jerk, who doesn't like showing his feelings or coming in close contact with people. I know that no matter what happens, he'll always be there to save me."

* * *

**You know what that's called?! BEING A BEAST! **

**I'm so proud of myself for not giving up. But I've also gotta thank you guys cause your constant reviews kept me going.**

**I'm probably going to try and fix up the first couple chapters, but I don't know when that'll happen. But other then that, this story is done**

**That's the end, my big finale!**

**So thank you SO SO much for reading Save Me! **

**Love ya bitches!**

**-LOVE VIDEOGAME CHIC!**


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